Every Other Weekend(14)
But I didn’t study myself for long, and I didn’t imagine Adam’s mom would have either. He was the one who drew my eye, with his ruddy hair falling forward and his eyes lighting up not for the camera, but for me. It was because I’d surprised him by leaning in and sneaking a photo, but anyone else would look at that picture and envy me. Not because Adam was an Adonis or anything—though I rather liked his jaw—but because his expression, his eyes, his everything, said he was looking at something beautiful.
With a reproachful sound that was directed solely at myself, I tossed my phone onto my pillow and bent to unpack my camera and laptop, ignoring, for the moment, the other few belongings that I was forced to shuffle back and forth between my parents’ residences. I kept basic necessities at both places, but I had only one nearly threadbare T-shirt featuring The Breakfast Club that I liked to sleep in.
After opening my laptop and Final Cut Pro, I rewatched the footage of Adam and me that I’d imported the day before. None of my footage had captured the magic moment from the cell phone pic, so I imported that image, too. My projects always started the same way: with random footage dumped together until, slowly, the story I wanted to tell took shape. My idol, Suzanne Silver, described her directorial process in a similar way. The current footage was still a mystery to me, but the story would come.
As I was closing my laptop, my phone buzzed, and I saw a text from Dad on the screen. My stomach twisted into a knot before I even read it.
Busy weekend. You understand. Shelly said everything went well. We’ll have dinner next time. Promise.
I clutched the phone with fingers that had gone icy cold. Yeah, sure we will. I could barely remember the last time I’d seen him, let alone had a meal with him. My last birthday, maybe? Just for kicks, I scrolled through his last half-dozen texts. They all said basically the same thing. A couple were identical, as if he’d copied and pasted the same words. I wondered if he thought I was dumb enough not to notice, or if he didn’t care either way. The knots in my stomach began twisting.
I didn’t respond. I never did.
I could put a stop to his absentee parenting act if I wanted to. A single word to Mom or her lawyer, and Dad’s no-show weekends would end...until his lawyer dug up something new on Mom. And on and on it would go.
No, thanks.
Besides, how was that a better story than the one I already had?
* * *
Hands shook me awake, interrupting my dream that I was Tarzan. During a brief moment of confusion, my dream and reality converged, and then the vine I was swinging on was torn from my grip.
“Jolene. Jolene! Wake up!”
My vines—or sheets, as I saw them with my awake eyes—were discarded at the foot of my bed and Mom was leaning over me.
“Good. You’re awake.” She smiled, perfectly white-capped teeth on full display.
Mom’s declaration that I was awake wasn’t a completely observable fact. My eyes were barely open, and my body remained curved around the vine/sheet that was no longer there. In truth, I’d hardly moved except to dip involuntarily toward her as she sat down on the mattress next to my hip.
“You’re not taking drugs, are you?” Her thumb lifted my eyelid, and I hissed and jerked away like a vampire confronted with sunlight.
Her hands settled on me again and more shaking commenced. “I wanted to see you. Would it have killed you to wait up for me?”
One eye opened and I glanced at her. “What time is it?”
“A little after two,” she said without a trace of remorse.
“Then, yes.”
Mom was sitting all prim and proper on my bed, her brown hair sleek and shiny on her shoulders. The neckline of the tank she wore was a little low, and I could see the outline of her sternum in addition to her muscle-shredded, olive-toned arms. Was it possible that she’d gotten skinnier in the past two days? My eyes said yes.
Her brown eyes gleamed a little too bright, but even without that visual clue, I could smell that she’d been drinking and I clutched at the corner of my pillow. These middle-of-the-night chats tended to happen only after a little help from Captain Morgan, and they never went well.
She always started with the same question. “How’s your father?”
“Fine.”
“And the home wrecker?”
“Mom.”
“What? Am I not allowed to ask about the woman your father chose to co-parent with? Is it not within my rights as your mother to want to know that she’s treating you well? Is it not—”
“She’s fine. Everything is fine. No one beat me or starved me or forced me to join a cult. No, Dad didn’t mention you. No, I didn’t get the sense that he and Shelly were splitting up. No, I didn’t find a secret bag of money marked Hide from Helen. I don’t know anything. I never know anything. Now, can I go back to sleep?”
But I couldn’t. Because she started to cry. So I had to hold her. Because she never held me.
“Tom says I should be getting more money.”
“Who’s Tom?” I asked, several minutes and a completely soaked shoulder later.
“Tom. You know Tom.”
I did not know Tom.
“I met him at the gym, and he says there’s no way Robert’s disclosing all his assets.” She lifted her head, and after I stopped focusing on the black smears all over her face, I realized she was looking at me like I was supposed to say something.