Is Erika looking up at her ceiling right now, or is she sleeping her usual sleep of the anesthetized? I’m convinced that the best sleep of your life is when you’re a teen.
I sit straight up in the bed. What did she say during our second phone conversation yesterday? Even the fact that there was a second call has every alarm bell clanging. I assumed she saidtext. Her phone is a constant source of angst in our house. Either she’s on it too often texting her friends or she’s been shut out of a group text created by some friend one day, enemy the next. What have we done to this generation of children growing up with these identity-crashing devices?
But what if she didn’t saytext? She’d been crying and it had almost sounded like her three-year-old lisp had returned, because the word had sounded a lot more likesext.
Hoping there is a less-terrible slang definition, I slide my phone from my bedside table and google the word.Sending or receiving sexually explicit or suggestive images, messages, or videos on electronic devices.Nope, as bad as I thought. My baby couldn’t possibly have meant that. She hadn’t even started talking about dating. Teen friendships took all her energy. And ours.
Without hesitation I make the call.
A low grunt greets me.
“Sorry, honey. Were you sleeping?”
“Was I sleeping at four a.m.?” Clint’s voice sounds as if gravel pelts every word.
“I’m worried about Erika.”
“Okay.” The bed creaks. “What’s happened?”
“How was she last night?”
“Fine, I think. I was late getting some updated trail maps sent to the printer after dropping Reid off. I ordered our favorite pizza from D’Ellies.”
My skin prickles in the cool air, and I tuck the sheet around my waist. He’s a talented cartographer and a very good dad. “Thanks for doing that. Did she talk at dinner?”
“Rob came over.”
I close my eyes. Clint’s Appalachian Trail buddy with a round face and a mop of brown curls appears behind my lids. He’s always throwing back his head and laughing his strange can’t-quite-get-the-old-roadster-engine-to-turn-over laugh. It used to make me giggle, but lately it just makes me tired. “What time did she get to bed?”
“What’s eating you, Mer?” He asks the question as if my answer is the last thing he wants to know.
“Something she said yesterday. She was pretty upset. Do you think there’s a guy?”
“What? What guy? No. I don’t think there’s a guy.” His tone shifts and he’s almost talking over himself.
“Fine.” I raise my open palm as if in surrender. “You’re right. I’m probably reading too much into it. Hard to tell over the phone.”
“So, she hasn’t mentioned a guy?”
“Not specifically.” I decide not to tell him the word she used and save him from the experience of acid sloshing through his stomach too. “I’m not there, so I don’t really know what she meant.”
He puffs into the phone. “That what this is?” His voice lowers. “Some kind of smoke screen to get back here? To get your own way?”
As if I’ve been physically slapped, my hand flies to my cheek and my eyes fill. My own way? None of this is my own way.
I lower the phone and watch as my finger ends the call.
Silence pulses in my ears like crashing waves.
I hung up on my husband. But how dare he think I’d create an issue with our daughter to manipulate him. She’s our priority over any infuriating marriage issues. I need to know our baby, our firstborn, is all right. And, of course, the one place in this world I want to be is the only place I can’t go. Home.
I move my trembling fingers over my screen and click on the Messages app. I send Erika a good-morning text and ask her to call me when she gets a chance. I remind her how much I love her.
She won’t get the message for another few hours until she retrieves her phone from our family docking station. I hope she’s sleeping soundly, the friend drama has resolved, and that she simply said the wordtext.
I place my quiet phone back onto the bedside table and slide out of bed.
I don’t call Clint. And he doesn’t call me.
