Whisper Me This(21)

“I’m not asking you to be glued to the phone. I’m asking that you let me know that you—and my daughter—arrived safely. That your plane landed, that you made the drive okay, whether everybody is still alive. It’s noon already, and I assume your plane landed at midnight. I’ve been worried sick.”

Now I feel guilty, on top of everything else, and that makes me stabby. His voice is loud enough that I know Elle can hear him. I hate fighting in front of her.

“Elle is fine. If you were so worried, why didn’t you call her cell phone?”

“I did. Straight to voicemail.”

“I turned it off,” Elle says in a small voice. “In the hospital. Like the sign said.”

“Here.” I hand her the phone. “You tell him.”

Washington State has laws about driving and talking. Besides, I’m exhausted and distracted, and there are deer in Colville. There are also a lot of intersections without so much as a yield sign. It would be fantastic if Elle and I crashed and ended up in the hospital. Maybe we could have a group room for the whole family.

“You should cut Mom some slack.” Elle is lecturing her father. “What with the fire, and the police, and both Grandma and Grandpa in the hospital—I’m not sure, it got sort of complicated—okay, here she is.”

She holds out the phone. “He wants to talk to you.”

The explanation is unnecessary. I can hear him shouting without putting that phone anywhere close to my ear. “Let me talk to your mother.”

I can totally understand why he’s throwing a fit. At the same time, I don’t want to cope with him right now. As if it’s operating independently of my oversight, my thumb gets decisive all on its own and presses the disconnect button.

Silence invades the car. My hand drops to my side, still white-knuckled around the phone.

“You hung up on Dad.”

“I’m driving.”

“I still can’t believe you did that.”

I can’t believe it, either. I don’t think I’ve ever hung up on anybody in my life. Greg will not take this well.

Elle starts to giggle.

“I don’t see what’s so funny.”

For some unknown and incomprehensible reason, my words add fuel to her hilarity. The giggle grows into trills of delicious laughter. She used to laugh like this when she was a baby, a sound of pure, astonished delight, untroubled by thoughts of who might be listening or whether the stimulus was worth the response.

It’s contagious.

When Elle’s phone rings, we’re both laughing so hard the tears are pouring down our cheeks.

“It’s Dad,” she says, looking at the caller ID. A snorting noise comes out of her nose, like a pig, and that sets her off again.

I picture Greg’s sternest courtroom face, the one he uses to admonish the jury. This elicits a snort from me, which sets Elle off again, just as she’s composed enough to say hello. I can hear the voice of frustration on the other end.

“Hello? Elle! Hello? Let me speak to your mother.”

Elle straightens her face to serious. She takes a breath and busts out laughing again.

“I can’t.” She holds the phone out to me.

I’m not sure I can, either, but years of following Greg’s directions sobers me enough to pull the car over to the side of the street and answer. My hello is breathless and a little strangled. Greg is not amused.

“What the hell is so freaking funny?”

Elle presses both hands over her nose and mouth to stifle her laughter, staring at me with wide eyes and raised brows. I shift my body away from her to look out the window and take a breath.

“Damn it, Maisey. Explain.”

“Nothing is funny. Not a single thing. Either that or everything is funny—the whole great, wide, absurd universe. At the moment, we are unsure.”

“Maisey.”

“It’s a laughter experiment? Therapy. One of my counselors was into it.”

He’s breathing heavily through his nose. I recognize the sound. I’ve heard it in the courtroom. I’ve heard it in the bedroom. It’s the sound of a fight brewing. I know the words that are going to come out of his mouth next, and I say them for him. “I’m serious, Maisey. This is serious. When are you going to grow up?”

And now I’ve gone too far. The silence on the other end of the line is deafening. Elle has stopped laughing.

“You are going to put Elle on a plane—”

“Listen, Greg. She’s fine. I’m sorry. I need some legal advice.”

More silence. A heavy sigh. “What have you gone and done?”

“Me? Nothing. It’s Dad.”

“Walter? How could Walter be in legal trouble?”

I ignore the fact that Greg has no problem at all believing I’ve stepped into trouble with the law and explain all about the criminal negligence charge, Mom’s broken bones, and Dad’s confused behavior. I refuse to use the word dementia, although it’s taken up prime real estate in my brain. It squats there, an ugly blot of a word, spelled out in capital letters, in Gothic font, dark and threatening.

The legal problem distracts Greg from my irresponsible behavior, and his tone shifts to a dispassionate, intellectual consideration, as if I’m a client and not his crazy baby mama. “I’d suggest that you get a psych eval done ASAP.”