He went back to his room and grabbed his phone off the charger where he’d left it. He added his voice to Emily’s, leaving yet another voicemail. “Mom, when you get this, please call. Please, please. I’m so sorry for how I’ve been. I love you. And miss you. Emily is beside herself. We both are. Please come back.”
He immediately followed it up with a text, just in case. I love you. Please call.
He held the phone in his hands for a full five minutes that seemed like a year, waiting for a response, even though it seemed his mother’s phone must be off. If she had thinking to do, she probably wouldn’t want them interrupting or adding their needs to hers, but damn, she had to know how they felt. How much they cared. Maybe it would help with the thinking process. Maybe she was already on her way back and just couldn’t use the phone while driving.
He wished he believed it.
He heard Gran get up and go to the bathroom. He heard all kinds of strange noises coming from there and vowed he wouldn’t use it for at least a half hour. But he was waiting for her in the hall as she came out.
“Jared!” she said, loudly. The sound bounced around the hallway, and Jared knew he couldn’t ask Gran about the noise, even if there was a chance it had woken her too. Dad would hear everything. “I was afraid I’d missed seeing you and Emily off.”
He froze. “I, uh—”
Emily flew out of her room and into Gran’s arms. Gran stumbled back a step as she caught her.
“Mom’s gone,” Emily said, sobbing, barely understandable. “She and Dad got into another fight, and she’s not coming for us.”
“What?” Gran looked up at Jared for confirmation.
“That’s what Dad says,” he answered.
And suddenly Dad was there at the end of the hallway where it opened onto the rest of the house.
“Diane’s not coming,” he confirmed.
Emily’s sobs got louder, and Gran’s arms tightened around her.
“Mom, why don’t I make you breakfast and we can talk?” Dad said.
Jared wondered if Gran would get something better than frozen waffles. It was a stupid thought, pointless in the face of everything else, but he didn’t think Dad knew how to cook. It was always Mom. Or cereal. Or Gran if they were over at her house.
Gran bent to kiss the top of Emily’s head. Not that she had to bend a lot. Gran had always been small and slight. A little wisp of a woman with blowy dandelion hair.
“Come on,” she said to Emily. “I bet you haven’t eaten either. I’ll make you some hot chocolate while your Dad fries up some eggs. I taught him that much, anyway. Bet he still remembers.” She caught Jared up in her look. “You too, young man. You need to eat. Your mother will come around. Meanwhile, you need to feed those muscles of yours.”
Jared still didn’t want to eat, but he didn’t have anything better to do. Not until Mom answered. Or Aaliyah woke up. She still hadn’t responded to him from last night.
He nodded and led the way into the kitchen, since he was in the way where he was.
He got out plates and stuff while Gran made them hot cocoa using heated up milk instead of microwaved water. Dad cooked eggs and Emily made toast after blowing her nose half a dozen times and washing her face and hands. They all pretended it was perfectly normal. No one talked about Mom, at least not after Gran pulled Dad aside to ask what was going on in what she thought was a whisper. He flashed a glance at Jared and Emily and promised they’d talk in the car when he dropped her home. Because Gran’s car was in the shop due to what she called “a little fender bender.” And after all the fuss Dad made about having a driver in the house. She didn’t look satisfied with being put off, but she didn’t push it. People generally didn’t with Dad.
It was all so pretend-fine that he wanted to scream.
It wasn’t fifteen minutes after they left that his and Emily’s phones lit up.
Five
Sunday morning
Jared
Jared was still staring at his phone when Emily came rushing in from the kitchen.
“Did you see it?” she asked.
It was a text from Mom: I’m so sorry. I need to get away for a while to think. Be in touch when I can. I love you.
But it didn’t feel right. All while Mom had been gone, she’d called. Why text now? Afraid they’d talk her out of leaving?
“I saw,” Jared answered. “Hold up.”
He hit the button to dial Mom.
“We know her phone is on,” he said to Emily as it rang. “Let’s try her. Maybe if she knows Dad is out …”
But it went to voicemail, just like when Emily had tried earlier. Mom really didn’t want to talk. Or maybe didn’t want to be found. Phones had GPS. There were ways to turn it off without turning off your phone, but Mom might not know them. Did she think they were going to track her down?
He hung up without leaving a message. Emily looked like she was going to cry again, and Jared couldn’t blame her. He wanted to rip Mom a new one for what she was doing to Emily, and was immediately ashamed of it. Wasn’t that the same thing he’d done when Mom moved out? Default to anger. What the hell was wrong with him?
“Text her back,” Jared said, afraid of what he might type. “If that’s how she wants to communicate, text her.”
Emily sat down next to him on the living room couch and started typing feverishly. When she hit send, she looked up, spearing him with her gaze. “Now you,” she said.
Jared felt hot and cold all at the same time. A message that would bring Mom back and not drive her away. It seemed impossible.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Tell her how much we miss her. Tell her about school. Say anything. Make her want us.”
Her voice cracked, and Jared’s hands tightened on his phone, as if he could take out all of his aggressions on it.
“I’ll try,” he said.
He stared at his phone for a full minute before typing, Mom, you have to come home. Dad’s not even here right now. You can come and go without seeing him. Emily is in tears. She’s so hurt. She doesn’t understand. Neither of us does. Explain it to us.
They both sat there waiting for an answer, ignoring the TV Jared had paused in the background. Seconds felt like minutes that felt like hours. No response came.
“At least we know she’s okay,” Jared said. He did feel better about that. Some knotted up part of him released.
Emily sniffled.
He held one arm out to her, and she skootched along the couch to settle under it. They weren’t a really touchy-feely family. They probably hadn’t cuddled up together since they were kids, falling asleep on each other in the backseat of a car during road trips. Happier times. But he hugged her now and she hugged back. He kissed the top of her head like Gran had done and reached for the TV remote, ignoring the fact that things looked a little blurry, like he had tears gathering in his own eyes. He tried to wipe them away with a shrug of his shoulder, but he only had one free, and it didn’t work very well.
He hit the play button on the remote to reanimate the Simpsons, and sat there watching with Emily until their father came home. Emily hopped up to show Dad the text, but Jared didn’t move. He felt like he was made of lead and couldn’t imagine what it would take to get him off the couch. Mom was gone. Nothing else seemed important.
His phone lit up again in his lap and pinged with the sound of an incoming text, and his heart gave a leap. For the first time since he’d known her, he was disappointed to see it was just Aaliyah. He’d never before thought “just” and Aaliyah in the same sentence.
Hey, you. Sorry, I slept in. Hope you got back to sleep. How’s your morning going? You at your Mom’s? Is it nice?
Jared’s heart turned into a brick and sank like one. He started to type back, but just couldn’t. He couldn’t say his mother had left them. It felt too raw and yet still didn’t feel real. Gran said Mom would come around, but then what? Were he and Emily supposed to just forget being abandoned and open themsel
ves up for that kind of hurt and rejection the next time things got tough? What was the alternative? No more Mom? Things didn’t work like that, even if he wanted them to, and he didn’t, despite everything. What he wanted was for all of this to never have happened—his parents not to have fought like honey badgers, his Mom not to have moved out. Not to be gone.
But wanting was useless. Wishing was useless. Things were what they were. He was mature enough to face up to that.
“I’m going running,” he announced, forcing himself up from the couch.
He still felt like lead. His heart still felt like a brick, too hard and stiff to pump the blood he needed, but he’d had crappy days before where he didn’t feel like running. The trick was doing it anyway. Sucked for the first mile or so, but then the endorphins kicked in.
Jared went to his room to change before anyone could protest. Not that they would. He changed into a tracksuit, grabbed his earbuds and hydration backpack—the one for here, not the one his mother had given him for the apartment he’d never even seen. He wished he could get out without facing anyone, but he had to stop in the kitchen to fill his hydration bladder from the filtered water tap.
It was okay. No one tried to talk to him.
He finished with the bladder and was out on the street in no time, looking up and down it for inspiration. He no longer felt like running, not in either direction. He realized what he was really looking for was his mother’s car. Or maybe some sign that she’d been there. Tire marks from peeling out or … He had no idea. But he spotted nothing in either direction except Mr. Meyers sculpting his hedges. The annoying sound of the trimmer decided Jared.
He started running in the other direction, jogging at first, getting his body and his muscles warmed up. Maybe the temperature would go up later in the day, but for now, it seemed their warm snap was over. The air was brisk. The morning fog hadn’t yet burned off, giving the whole world a semi-surreal quality.
It took a monumental effort to keep pace. Worse than usual. But after a few blocks, his body didn’t feel quite so heavy—as if he was made of clay, not lead, and it fractured away with the force of each footstep. Like stomping off muddy boots. Another block and he took the turn toward Edger Addison Park. He was moving faster now, more smoothly. His stride not even broken when he had to hop off the sidewalk to avoid a woman with a stroller, her friend walking alongside so that he couldn’t pass. He dodged a shaggy dog on a leash who lunged for him. He’d met the dog before, Stanley. If he was at the end of his run, he might pause and let Stanley jump up for face licks and ear ruffling, but he wasn’t. Momentum kept him going. A day like today if he stopped he might never start again.
He ran through the park—overly warm now, though he knew better than to remove his jacket—around the lake, dodging obstacles with Linkin Park and Five Finger Death Punch and Three Days Grace fueling him. Linkin Park’s “Numb” was pounding through his head, skirting the thoughts he was trying to outrun. He wanted to be numb, instead of what he was. Angry. Hurt.
Green Day came on as he hit the end of the park, which signaled his cool down. He’d started to slow when the music suddenly cut out for a ping that said he had a text coming in, and it stopped him cold. It could be Mom. Hope beat out anger and pain for a second as he freed the phone from his armband holster. He pressed his finger against the sensor to unlock the phone.
His heart dropped.
Aaliyah again. Hey, you there? Checking in.
Right, he’d never answered. He’d done that before, or she had—in a movie, in the shower, whatever, but he’d never gone the day without saying something. Damn. He had to keep moving, but he had to text Aaliyah. He hit the button for his microphone to do voice-to-text and started jogging in place.
“Sorry so silent. Stuff to work out. No Mom. Running to clear my head. I’ll call when I’m back.”
He hit send without actually checking the readout, so he hoped voice-to-text got things right for once. Then he slid his phone back into his holder and kept going, slowing even further as he hit his neighborhood from the other end, stopping at the Meyers’ fence to stretch out, since he no longer heard the sound of the trimmer or saw any sign of their neighbor. Not that he was a bad guy, but Jared didn’t want to talk, and Mr. Meyers could be … not so much a talker as a questioner, as in, “How is your sister? Your parents doing well?” Not questions he wanted to answer today. He wondered how his son Andrew survived the constant surveillance.
He was stretching his quads when Mr. Meyers’ head popped up above the fence. Not finished, apparently; just bagging the clippings.
“Young Mr. Graham,” he said cheerily, pushing his black-framed glasses back up where sweat had slid them down, leaving behind a smudge from his gardening gloves. “It’s good to see you. I wish I had your drive.”
Damn. He’d nearly made it home, free and clear.
“Hi, Mr. Meyers,” he said, hoping his real feelings didn’t show. “Good to see you. Hope you don’t mind me hanging onto your fence while I stretch.”
Mr. Meyers waved that away. They’d had this conversation before. It had never been an issue.
“How’s your mother? I was so sorry to hear she’d moved out.” Mr. Meyers’ glasses made his eyes look big, owlish.
The endorphins that had flooded Jared’s system seemed to wash out in one great wave. “Fine,” he said tightly. “I have to get home.”
He skipped the other quad. He’d have to finish stretching at home or on the way before he tightened up, but he needed to not be having this conversation. If he didn’t want to talk to Aaliyah, he sure as hell didn’t want to talk to Mr. Meyers, who already knew too much. It had been his house he and Emily had run to the night of his parents’ final fight. Or maybe not so final.
He started off again, but Mr. Meyers paced him along the fence. “Jared,” he said, slowing him up, since he was too polite to just walk on. “Tell your mother that Carla and I are here if she needs to talk, okay? She has our number.”
Jared really looked at him now. Sean and Carla had been close to his parents. “Sorry to hear” that his mother moved out implied she hadn’t talked to them directly. Probably not since she’d left. Certainly not last night, when she was upset enough to leave and not come back, but apparently not too emotional to drive. Not so devastated that she sought out a sympathetic ear or a shoulder to cry on.
On the other hand, if Mom couldn’t be bothered to stay part of his and Emily’s lives, it would have been crushing if the Meyers had made the cut.
To confirm, Jared asked, “So she hasn’t talked to you at all since she left? You didn’t hear from her last night, maybe?”
Mr. Meyers gave him a sharp look. “No,” he answered slowly. “Why?”
“No reason.” He was to the end of the fence now and starting to speed up again.
“I’ll check in with Carla,” Mr. Meyers called after him.
He waved but didn’t look back. He hit his yard at a power walk and stretched out on his front porch rather than go inside just yet. Lunges, hip flexors, calf stretches, back. The sweat was starting to dry, and the shade of the porch made the cool-down a bit too literal. He finished up fast and went in for a shower, keeping the earbuds in until he got to the bathroom so no one would try to talk to him.
He took the shower as hot as he could stand it to wash away the grime. If only his excess emotions would sluice off as easily as the sweat.
When he got out, he called Aaliyah, as promised.
Six
Sunday morning
Emily
Emily was the one who answered the phone when Aunt Aggie called Sunday morning. She was back at work on her poems, but they were all coming out like overblown crap, and she was glad to throw down her pen and go for the phone.
“Oh my god, Emily? Where are you?” her aunt sounded borderline frantic. “No, scratch that, I know where you are. You’ve just answered the phone, but why are you there? You’re supposed to be with your mother. You were supposed to have met me
half an hour ago for breakfast.”
Emily was totally confused. “If you didn’t think we’d be here, why did you call?”
Aunt Aggie took a deep breath and let it out slowly, as if counting. “Emily,” she said fake-calmly, “can you answer my questions, honey?”
Aunt Aggie hadn’t answered hers, but she supposed her aunt had asked first. Her heart was starting to squeeze. If her mother had reached out to anyone or gone anywhere but her new apartment, it would have been to her only sister.
“Mom came Friday, but then she and Dad had a fight and she left,” Emily said. “She didn’t call you?”
It was clear enough, but she had to be sure. Now she was really, really worried about Mom. More scared even than hurt. She hadn’t felt right since yesterday. After the relief of hearing from Mom, the pain had swamped her. Dad hadn’t made it up. Mom really had left them. She wouldn’t even call or text them back. And despite her begging, Dad said he wouldn’t chase Mom down, even if he knew where to look. She hadn’t given him her new address.
“She didn’t call,” Aunt Aggie said. “She didn’t answer any of my texts, not even to confirm breakfast this morning. I just figured she was busy with you and Jared and that I’d see you at the restaurant, but none of you showed, and now you tell me you never even left.…” Her voice was starting to go sharp. “Emily, please put your father on the phone.”
Emily’s heart started to flutter. “Aunt Aggie, what’s wrong? Something’s going on, isn’t it? I know you don’t want to worry me, but I’m already worried.”
“Please, let me talk to your father. Maybe we can figure this out.”
The sick feeling in the pit of her stomach grew to swallow her whole. She’d heard Dad moving around in his room, but he hadn’t yet come out. He wasn’t going to like being disturbed for this. Not that it mattered. Mom came first.
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