Lost and Wanted(98)

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—

My hands were trembling a little when Jack and I got upstairs, either from the cold or from the conversation. I worried that I’d somehow betrayed Simmi in the way I’d told Terrence about the phone—would it have been better to encourage her to tell him? That of course would have been difficult to do this morning, in front of Jack and Nicki. I regretted bringing up Nicki with Terrence at all, although in the moment it hadn’t felt so far out of line. Terrence was my dead friend’s husband, and he was living in my house. On the other hand, I wasn’t sure whether it was loyalty or jealousy that had made me react to Nicki the way that I did.

I had thought the plans for the garden might improve Jack’s mood, but he clearly hadn’t gotten enough sleep. As soon as we were back in our apartment, he began a familiar argument about how much less fun I am than other parents. Leo had a bowl of M&Ms in his room; Dylan had an iPad mini, loaded with all kinds of games—not math games, he clarified; and Miles, as we had often discussed, had three siblings. I had little patience for the fight he was trying to pick. I told him I was going to make some coffee, and that he could play in his room, or read, or even lie down and take a nap.

    “Can I watch a movie?”

“Didn’t you watch movies all last night?”

“So?”

“So it’s enough.”

Jack was suddenly tearful. “I bet every other kid on the whole planet is watching a movie right now. I’m tired. It’s not going to rot my brain or something—just watching one movie.”

“Jack, I love you. But you’re being very difficult right now.” I was proud of myself for remaining calm.

“Oh, so now you think I’m difficult? That’s nice. That’s very nice. Everyone in my class except me has a phone.”

“I know that’s not true.”

“It is true.”

We had been standing in the entryway, and now, instead of going toward his own room, Jack ran up a few steps toward mine, then stopped and turned around.

“Simmi has one.”

I hesitated for a moment. “Her iPad, do you mean?”

“No,” Jack said. “You think I don’t know the difference? You’re stupid!”

“Jack! You don’t talk to me like that.”

“She has a phone and an iPad. She has everything.”

I was filled with a kind of furious rage. I climbed the stairs to him, grabbed his shoulders.

“?‘She has everything?’ How can you say that?” I wasn’t screaming, but I wasn’t in control any longer. I was right in his face. I could see that he was scared, but I couldn’t stop. “She lost her mother.”

Jack broke free of me and ran up the stairs. He slammed the door, but the walls are so thin that I could still hear him.

“I wish I could lose you!”



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—

    I went down to the kitchen and made coffee. I was thinking about my parents, who had spanked me only once or twice, with little conviction. I had never hit Jack, but sometimes I wondered if what I did was worse. I got angry, then apologized and tried to take it back. And what had been the point of it? Technology? My restrictions and his access to it? What other kids were allowed to do? Did it really have to do with the devices, in all their seductive power, or was it Terrence he wanted—a father?

I drank half a cup of coffee, then went upstairs and found Jack where I knew he’d be, in the closet. He was holding a porcupine quill that my parents had brought back from a trip they took to Kenya, a photographic safari in 1979. It had been their biggest splurge, the only time they’d ever left us with our grandparents and gone somewhere together. They were both passionate about animals, and especially touched by any suffering creature; growing up, my sister and I had cared for abused dogs and cats, as well as rabbits, guinea pigs, and a pair of rats from the school’s science lab. My father would help my sister and me design mazes for them out of blocks.

Jack was frowning, using the quill to draw a pattern in the wall-to-wall carpeting that I’d always meant to tear out. There were nice wooden floors underneath it.

“I don’t want to talk,” he warned me.

“Okay.” I sat down and he glared at me. “I just wanted to tell you sorry for getting upset.”

Jack didn’t say anything.

“Are you still angry about the phone?”

I waited, but he remained silent.

“What do you want a phone for?”

“To play Minecraft.”

“You can play that on the computer.”

“You never let me!”

I was about to argue, and reconsidered. “And Terrence does?”

Jack hesitated. “He doesn’t know.”

“That Simmi likes Minecraft?”

    Jack sighed. “She doesn’t. I mean, he doesn’t know that she has a phone.” He stopped suddenly, put his head on his knees.

“Jack?”

He mumbled something.

“What?”

“Don’t tell him.” He looked up fiercely. “Promise you won’t. She told me not to tell anyone. She’ll hate me.”

“Okay,” I said. “I promise. But I already knew she had a phone.”