Bright Before Sunrise(11)

She laces her fingers together and looks down at the toes of her pumps. “I took a half day. It was too hard to focus. I keep thinking about tomorrow. I need everything to be perfect for your father.”

I look beyond her shoes to the mess she’s already created in the foyer: her coat slung over the banister, a coffee mug on the antique bureau, her purse on one stair, her briefcase on another, and her keys—for some reason—on the floor.

“How about we stay home? I’ll make tea and you can change out of your work clothes.”

Mom looks up. Almost-formed tears cling to her eyelashes as she blinks with surprise. “But it’s Friday, we’ve got manicures. And look at that chip on your nail.”

“I can just touch it up. We could reschedule. What if we go on Monday?”

“We always go on Friday. We’ve got appointments.”

I open my mouth to protest, but a smudge of mascara under her left eye stops me. She’s been crying. “Okay.”

Mom nods. “Go on, put away your bag, then we’ll leave.”

I obey, climbing the stairs to my bedroom, hanging my bag on its hook on the back of my door, swapping my wallet and phone into a purse, and grabbing that instead. I allow myself one forlorn glance at my bed, flipping over the pillowcase so I can’t see the mascara tear stains from last night. Then I head downstairs to where Mom is waiting, keys in hand.





7

Jonah

2:29 P.M.


HALF-PAST GUILT


Mom meets me at the door wearing my baby sister in a sling around her neck. She’s also wearing a burp cloth, a splatter of baby spit-up, and a frazzled expression. She looks like a walking advertisement for birth control, but she claims to love her new life as a stay-at-home mom.

“Jonah, buddy—” she begins, reaching up to unwind the sling and smiling hopefully.

I step to the side before she can get it off. “Hey, Mom. I’ve got to get going, I’m meeting Carly.”

“Could you change your plans? Have Carly come here instead?”

“No way in hell—”

She cuts me off with a disapproving frown and mouths the word “language” while covering Sophia’s ears.

I look around for Paul, because Mom’s still rational most of the time. I don’t see him. “She can’t even talk yet.”

“But she can listen. Is that the example you want to be setting?” She’s smiling though, so at least she recognizes she’s being insane.

“Damn, I guess I’m a crappy big brother then. You wouldn’t want a screwup with such foul language around Sophia.”

She laughs. “I’m glad to see the swear jar was effective. We’ll have to charge this one a dollar instead of a quarter.”

“That one” will be able to afford a dollar a swear. I’m sure Paul will pay her allowance in gold coins if she asks.

“Oh, please, Jonah. Our babysitter canceled, and Paul and I have dinner reservations. You’d really be helping us out.”

She must be desperate if she’d ask me. Paul always hovers when I’m holding Sophia—like he needs to be ready to swoop in and rescue his precious daughter in case I decide to shake or drop her. And Carly—well, if I see Sophia as a reason to use birth control, Carly views her as an argument for abstinence.

I try to look sorry. “Maybe if I’d known earlier, but we’ve got plans.”

Mom sighs and runs a hand through her hair, smearing some of the spit-up from her shoulder. If this lifestyle wasn’t a prison of her own making, and if I wasn’t trapped in it too, maybe I’d be sympathetic.

But my life is waiting in Hamilton.

“It’s okay. Have fun. Tell Carly we say hi.”

I turn to go up the stairs just as Sophia wakes and starts to wail. Mom begins to bounce her and coo, “Shhh, baby girl. Please, please shhh. For me?”

Dammit, she sounds so pathetic. And exhausted. I sigh and make a 180, holding out my arms. “I can wait a little while. Go take a shower or a break or something.” I even tolerate the hug she gives me along with my sister.

“Twenty minutes tops, I promise! You are my best son ever,” she calls from halfway up the stairs.

I switch Sophia to my other arm and put down my backpack. Then bob and weave around the living room, catching my reflection in Paul’s sixty-inch flat screen—I look like a poorly controlled marionette. Sophia’s noises go from a screech to a whimper. I add a singsong, “Your mom is nuts. Totally freakin’ nuts,” and my sister has the good sense to smile up at me. Then she yawns, shuts her eyes, and goes back to sleep.

It’s so easy to make this baby happy—I’m jealous. The warm weight of her against my chest and the little sighs she gives as she nestles closer and grasps a tiny fistful of my shirt almost distract me from how long Mom’s been upstairs.

I whisper to her, “Make a mental note of this for later: your mom is the slowest showerer ever. She uses up all the hot water and takes at least twice as long as she says she will.”

The mom who comes back downstairs is the one my sister will recognize, but she no longer looks like the parent I grew up with. My mother used to come home from her job as an office manager at an insurance company and change into sweats or jeans with holes. My mom was nineteen when I was born—I was the oops Juliana/Jordan mentioned in English, not Sophia.