Every Other Weekend(9)

“Like if someone stole it? Why would they call my mom?”

“Not a thief then, but a Good Samaritan. Or maybe Jeremy.”

“Jeremy has his own phone, and I doubt there’s a good anything within twenty square blocks of this apartment.” I thought of Jolene and Shelly. There was a pause while Mom tried to figure out how to respond to my antipathy. I yawned audibly. “I’m just tired. The mattresses over here are sacks filled with old laundry.”

Another pause.

“That’s a joke, Mom.”

More shaky laughter. She must have had a worse night than I had. “I can’t always tell when you’re teasing me.”

“All right.” I stood up and stretched my back. “No more jokes. You okay? Did you sleep a little?”

“Oh, sure.” She forced an overly bright note into her voice. “Just whipping up breakfast for one.”

I imagined her standing in the kitchen with one hand clenching the counter in a death grip. She’d probably been up for hours. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d repainted half the house or something.

“What about you? You have an okay time with your dad last night?”

I thought about how to answer a question I knew it had practically killed her to ask. Anything I said would hurt her. She’d feel more alone if I told her it was good, and she’d blame herself if I told her the truth. So, in a flash of brilliance or insanity, I told her the only other thing I could think of. “I met a girl.”

“You what?” Finally an unguarded response.

“She lives in the building, the apartment next door actually.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” I heard something clinking. “Let me get my coffee, and then I want to hear everything. What’s her name?”

I smiled in relief. Mom sounded like Mom for the first time in longer than I liked to think about. “Jolene.”

“Like the Dolly Parton song? I wonder if they named her—oh no. Probably not. She’s kind of a home wrecker in the song. It’s really pretty though.”

“She’s a really pretty girl,” I said, realizing for the first time that it was true, objectively if nothing else. “She has a great smile with this little gap between her front teeth and a twisted sense of humor, but I kind of like that.” I found myself telling Mom about Jolene—what I knew at any rate—and carefully omitting details that would not have added to the picture I was painting. When I was done, even I could see how I would have been crushing on this girl if things had gone a little differently.

“What did I tell you?” Mom said. “I knew you’d find something to like. When will you see her again?”

“Um. I don’t know. We only just met.”

“Oh, of course, but it’s nice, you know? Jeremy won’t talk to me about girls and—well, it’s just nice.”

Greg used to talk to her about stuff like that. I felt that old-but-never-gone sadness flare up at the way her voice had thickened. I tried not to let mine do the same. “I promise to keep talking to you about her. I’ll try to see her again today.”

“Maybe you can get a picture of her,” Mom said, and then added, “She doesn’t even have to know you’re taking it.”

“Mom, that’s called stalking, and most girls don’t like it.”

“You’re teasing me again, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but I’m still not taking pictures of unassuming girls for you.”

“My funny boy. You’re just making me miss you more.”

“More than Jeremy. Not much of a compliment.”

“I miss you both the same.”

I rolled my eyes, but the effect was lost on the phone. “Right. Did he even call you yet?”

“He will. He’s probably still asleep.”

“I can fix that.” I lowered the phone and distantly heard Mom telling me not to wake my brother as I headed to the other room to do exactly that.

The blanketed lump on the couch showed me Dad was still asleep. Once in the other still-darkened room, I not so gently shoved my lousy brother over. “Get up and talk to Mom.” I left off the word I wanted to call him, since Mom would have heard.

“Adam, what the—” not-Jeremy said. Dad was blinking up at me. “What’s wrong with your mom?” He moved quicker than I did, seizing my phone before I thought to correct him. “Sarah? Are you all right?”

And then I had to listen to Mom’s muffled explanation that I was supposed to be giving the phone to Jeremy. It got more awkward when Dad explained that, after I’d gone to bed, he and Jeremy decided to change the sleeping arrangements. The conversation itself wasn’t the problem; it was listening to my parents talk as though they were strangers that hurt. Dad, with his husky sleep voice that he kept trying to mask, and Mom with her painful over-politeness. These were not people who’d been married for twenty years. Who had kids together. The strained how are yous that they exchanged before hanging up made it worse.

“Sorry,” I said when Dad handed my phone back.

“Might want to rethink your wake-up call.”

“I thought you were Jeremy.”

“He offered to take the couch.”

“Yeah. I got that,” I said, ending the longest conversation Dad and I had had in weeks. I left him to get up or go back to sleep or whatever. Jeremy was sitting up on the couch and scratching himself when I walked through the living room/hall.