What's Life Without the Sprinkles - By Misty Simon Page 0,36
of bed, heading for the shower. The phone rang before he could get there. He thought about leaving it to the answering machine, but since today was the big lunch day, he picked it up. It could be Claudia in need of some last-minute support. He wasn’t planning on going to the lunch at May’s until it was nearly over, simply because he didn’t know how much Peter he could stand in a day. Being available for Claudia was important, though.
As soon as Nate picked up the receiver, Justin started talking in a low voice. “Can you talk, Nate? I have a problem, and I think I need a man-to-man talk.”
It was the equivalent of the emergency girl meetings held by Claudia, Zoe, and May, and Nate knew enough to take the call seriously. “What’s up, buddy? Are you getting ready for the lunch over at your Aunt May’s house?” Glancing at the clock on the nightstand, he realized it was only eight-thirty in the morning, too early for Claudia to start everyone dressing for a lunch.
“Not yet. Even my mom isn’t that fanatical about stuff.”
Nate laughed at the way Justin almost mirrored Nate’s thoughts. “Good word, guy. I guess you are learning some stuff in school.”
Normally Justin would have laughed, too, but he didn’t this time. It made Nate pull up his joking immediately.
“What’s up, guy? Do you need me to come get you for an hour or so? Talk to your mom?” Nate tried to never come between Justin and Claudia, and he certainly did everything he could not to step on her parental toes, but this might be the one time he overrode that unspoken rule.
“Nah, Mom wouldn’t take too well to me leaving right now. My grandparents are coming to get me in about thirty minutes to go to church, but I have to talk to you. I’m in my closet with the cordless. Can you talk?”
“Of course, Justin. What do you need?” Nate’s shower could definitely wait for this.
There was a long pause on the other end on the line, but Nate waited. Justin was one of those kids who could not be prodded to open up. He had to come out with it in his own time.
“My mom just tried to talk to me about Peter being my biological father.”
“How’d that go?” This was a touchy subject no matter how you looked at it or when you tried to address it.
“Not so good. I left the room when she tried to get me to tell her how I felt. I hate all that sappy crappy talk.”
Nate didn’t call him on the crappy thing since he himself would have said much worse. “Okay. And now you’re hiding out in your closet?”
“Well, kind of. I don’t want her to say anything else, because she always gets this really sad look in her eyes when she talks about me not having a father. And it bugs the crap out of me because I don’t think I missed out on anything, especially because I have you. But I can’t tell her that, because then she gets all teary-eyed and says things like ‘I’m sorry he left you,’ and then it gets worse. I just avoid it altogether, usually, but now that this bozo is here, I can’t anymore. And I really, really do not want to see him today, but Mom’s going to make me. It’s going to be a really screwed-up day. You know?”
His words had all come out in a rush, but Nate knew where he was coming from. “Look, Justin, I’m going to be straight with you, okay?”
A brief hesitation and then Justin said, “Okay.”
“Your mom does her best job with you. And part of her best job is to make sure that you’re loved and to also make sure that if you have to talk to someone you know you can talk to her, even if it’s an uncomfortable conversation.”
Justin’s sigh gusted through the phone. “I know.”
“So part of that whole thing involves her bringing up subjects that you might think don’t need to be talked about but ones your mom isn’t sure how you feel about, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then it follows that she wants you to know you can talk to her about Peter if you want. I know she hasn’t always said a lot about him, hardly anyone does, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist.”
“I wish he didn’t.”
“But if he didn’t, then you wouldn’t, and that would take a certain midget light out