nine
Henry
Before I fallasleep in my seat, I text Jade to see if she’s home yet.
My phone vibrates a minute later. I slide my thumb across the bottom to start a FaceTime with her. She’s in the kitchen, eating something.
“Craving?” I ask.
“No, just hungry.” She chomps down on a chip. “You guys do know you’re crazy, right? You should’ve just waited and flown home with the team.”
“Who knows when they’re gonna leave in the morning? You should be swooning right that I’m going to these lengths to get home to you.”
“I am swooning, believe me.” She laughs.
“Hi, Daddy!” Bodhi calls in the background, then I hear the freezer shut.
“He’s still awake?” I’d assumed he’d spend the night at Jade’s parents’.
“Yeah, he really wanted to come home, but he’s hungry, so we’re having a late night snack.” She turns the phone so I can see him.
Bodhi’s in his plaid pajamas with his hair perfectly combed, which tells me he took a shower and got ready for bed, but his head never hit the pillow.
“It was a lot of excitement,” Jade says, getting closer to him. “Tell Daddy about your night. I have to get my Chapstick out of my purse.”
Bodhi doesn’t need to be asked twice before he takes the phone and positions it in front of him, spooning his ice cream. “Uncle Waylon had us go down the stairs on pillowcases. He made a big stack of pillows at the bottom of the stairs so we’d run into them. It was so fun! Uncle Owen pushed me one time, and I went so fast.”
“So we should be happy you didn’t break a bone?”
“There were pillows,” he says as if that makes a difference.
“I told them when this baby comes, no more horsing around like that,” Jade says from somewhere in the kitchen. “Huh.”
“What’s going on?” I ask Bodhi, since I can’t see Jade.
“What is it, Mommy?” Bodhi turns away from the phone.
“I can’t find the envelope.” She sounds frantic.
“The gender reveal envelope?” I frown.
Bodhi hops off the stool to help, leaving me with a view of neither of them. I can only hear their voices.
“No, Henry, the electric bill. Yes—the gender reveal envelope.” I hear a scattering of items hit a hard surface. She must have dumped her purse. “Where could it be? Bodhi, you don’t see it, right?”
“No,” he says.
“Bodhi, come and grab Mommy’s phone and take it over there,” I say, desperate to see what’s going on.
“Hold on.” He comes back over, turning the phone away from him.
Jade shakes her head at the mess on the kitchen table. “It’s not here. I mean, we went shopping, but I would’ve noticed it fall out when I took my wallet out my purse. I mean, Henry, it was a big envelope.”
“Do you remember the last time you saw it?” My forehead creases.
Bodhi positions the phone again and walks away, probably to eat his ice cream.
“No. I showed my mom when I got to the house after the appointment. Told her she’d find out at Christmas, when we were going to surprise them. Bodhi, you remember that, right?”
