Joan: Isaac has a tournament and it starts Friday night. I’m not on the schedule, but I’ll be there sometime on Saturday.
Eric: See you then.
I know she’s scheduled off for Friday, I’m the one who made it. But now…project apologize to Joan begins.
22
Joan
Other than thatbland text Eric sent me on Monday, I haven’t heard from him most of the week. He gave me a heads up about a Halloween party the bar is throwing, but not much else. It sucks because I don’t know where we stand. The radio silence is enough to drive me insane.
“Hey, Mom.” Abby comes into the room. “Do I have to go to the tournament all weekend?”
We are supposed to leave in twenty minutes, and she asks me this now. I swear my kids have zero concept of time. “Why?”
“Chloe is having a sleepover and asked if I could come.”
“And she planned it today?”
“Yep. She’s asking a couple of other girls from the team to come so we can get some practice in before school starts. Camp wasn’t exactly stellar with some of the players.”
She knows I’m less likely to say no if they are doing it as a team building sort of thing. And I have to admit I’m impressed the girls are putting this together instead of the coach. It shows some initiative.
“Fine. But her parents will have to pick you up. And, either me or your dad will be there in the morning to get you. This is your brother’s last tournament before school starts and it would be nice if you’re there.”
“Thank you.” She rushes to me and gives me a hug. “I’ll be ready early. And don’t worry everything will work out.”
Ugh, the way this kid takes everything on is breaking my heart. She shouldn’t be worrying about my heart as she goes into the school year.
“Don’t you worry about me and Eric. We’ll work things out one way or another.” I squeeze her one last time because my baby is growing up faster than I want her to. “Go have fun with your friends. Fill me in on all the juicy gossip tomorrow.”
“Oh, I will. You don’t have to worry about that.” She turns and leaves the room.
“Don’t forget to bring sun-friendly clothes. It’s summer, not the right time for hoodies.”
“Okay,” she calls from halfway down the hall. I don’t know why I bother. Her and her brother don’t leave the house without a sweatshirt of some kind in hand despite the weather.
I turn to the bed and empty out the tote bag I was packing everything into. Most of this stuff we won’t need until tomorrow, but I want to get it in the car tonight. If I know my son the way I think I do, he’s bound to be running around the house looking for everything and that will make us late.
There are three bottles of sunscreen that I throw into the bag, plus those cooling towels in case any of the boys need it. The only thing I have left to do is pack my clothes for tomorrow, but those will go in a separate bag. I don’t want to have to rummage through them to get to what we need at the game.
“Mom!”
What now? This time it’s Isaac calling for me. “What do you need?” I finished shoving our items in the tote, and my clothes in my duffel. I throw them over my shoulder and close the door to my room.
“Have you seen my cleats?” I shouldn’t have thought anything. I’m pretty sure I brought this on.
“No.” I set the bags on the sofa. “Did you check the garage?”
My dad usually makes him leave them out there if they are dusty so he doesn’t track the dirt throughout the house.
“That’s where I am. They aren’t here.” This child will be the death of me. Maybe I’m not ready for him to start driving. He’ll constantly be asking me to look for his keys.
I glance around the living room to see if I can spy them anywhere. They aren’t by the front door where I usually trip over them. I rush to the kitchen, and they aren’t by the back door either. We have to leave in ten minutes. I don’t have time to go by the store and buy him another pair.
There’s only one more place they could be. I hurry back to the living room, and turn on the flashlight on my phone. Getting down on all fours I check under the couch. “Found them.”
He runs into the living. “Thanks. I ended up not wearing them to practice last night because I couldn’t find them and Coach made me run.”
