Not Perfect(41)

“I’ll be right back,” Tabitha said, but she might as well have been talking to the wall, Fern was so absorbed by the show. She put a throw blanket over her, hoping that would rouse her, but Fern just let it settle with no reaction.

Tabitha went back to her bedroom and pulled out the list again. She was so tired of her lists. The other one, the one with the stolen items, was necessary. But this one was doing her no good. First she circled the ninth item—Abigail. It was the most important clue here, it was what had brought them to this place. It was the one she should focus on, the one she had been focusing on at first with Internet searches and random phone calls and no luck; she couldn’t get any traction at all. She should try harder, keep looking. She didn’t need the list to do it; the list was distracting her. She read through it one more time, then she ripped it up into tiny pieces, took the handful to the toilet, and flushed, glad that if this caused a backup she could just call the maintenance person. At least that wasn’t something she had to worry about all by herself.



She let everyone sleep late the next morning, and she truly believed she rested better without that list next to her. Maybe it was less about getting rid of the list and more about beginning to acknowledge the actual problem, but either way it felt like the first step in moving forward. She sat up in bed and pulled a book off the top of her pile. She hadn’t read a book for pleasure in a long time. She was just about to open it when her cell phone rang. She looked at the display—it was Sarina’s mother.

“Kaye, hi, I was going to call you this morning,” Tabitha lied. “I want to thank you so much for yesterday. Fern had such a good time.”

There was silence on the other end, and Tabitha thought maybe they’d been disconnected. She pulled the phone away from her ear to check, but saw the seconds were ticking away.

“Kaye?” she said into the phone.

“I’m here,” she answered, but there was something cold about her usually warm voice. Didn’t Kaye just call her? Tabitha got a weird feeling in her stomach.

“Is everything okay?” Tabitha asked.

“I was going to ask you the same question,” Kaye said. “Did Fern say she had fun yesterday?”

“She did,” Tabitha said, trying to remember if she actually said she had fun. She didn’t say she didn’t have fun. What wasn’t to like about a water park? “It sounded like a good day. She said there was a lot of food.” Suddenly Tabitha remembered Fern’s tiny outburst after she got home. Had she missed something?

“Well, yeah, there was that,” Kaye said slowly, drawing out the words. “But, Tabitha, I’m concerned about Fern, and I’m also concerned about you.”

“What? Why?”

“Fern was unable to participate yesterday. She was in a lot of pain.”

Kaye let the words sit there.

Tabitha could play dumb. She could ask, What pain? But she knew. “Do you mean her knee? And what do you mean she was unable to participate? She was with you all day. Why didn’t you call me?”

“She didn’t want us to,” Kaye said, and there was something about the way she said us that bothered Tabitha. Like now Kaye’s family was a unit protecting Fern.

“Well, I would have come to get her right away,” Tabitha said defensively. “I wasn’t doing anything important. I was just waiting for her to come home really.”

“Look, we’ve known each other for a long time,” Kaye said, and her voice sounded a little warmer. Don’t be too nice, Tabitha thought, or I’ll cry. I’ll break down like I did in the stupid grocery store yesterday. Be mean, it’s easier. “And I know what a good mother you are. I mean, you really are. But lately, something hasn’t seemed right, or at least it hasn’t seemed the same. I know Stuart’s away, and I can only imagine how hard that is. I hate when Hugo goes away, even for a night or two. It’s not that, though. It’s that Fern said she’s been in pain for a long time and, well, I am just wondering why you haven’t done anything about it.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Tabitha said. She felt like a strobe light was blinking at all the ends of her body—her fingers, her toes. How did she let it get to this point? “I’ve been paying close attention to what’s going on with Fern’s knee. In fact, we have an appointment tomorrow morning.”

“You do?” Kaye said, and Tabitha could hear the relief in her voice. Screw you! she wanted to call through the phone. I don’t need you to feel relieved that I’m taking care of my child. “Fern didn’t mention that.”

“Well, she didn’t know, I guess,” Tabitha said. “But thanks for your concern.”

“Sure,” Kaye said, now the flustered one. “I just want to make sure you guys are okay.”

“We’re fine,” Tabitha said, before hanging up.



Tabitha didn’t ask Fern about the water park or about what she told Sarina and her family. She kept things as simple as possible all day Sunday, not asking anything of the kids, basically just sitting around the apartment eating the bread, cheese, and tiny tomato. She didn’t even make them do their homework. Her main goal was to let Fern’s knee rest.

Monday morning she woke up extra early with the intention of taking Fern to the walk-in hour at the pediatrician’s office. It wasn’t really meant for Fern’s situation—she knew that. It was meant for something that literally came up overnight. But she couldn’t stand the thought of calling the triage nurse and waiting around all morning for her to call back while Fern watched more TV. She had an urge to do something right now. So she left Levi in the apartment with the instructions to leave in ten minutes and go straight to school, something she had never done before, and she and Fern set out for the pediatrician’s office less than four blocks away.