My mother would have loved this, I thought with a pang. She would have admired the children’s costumes, complimented my nut-free, gluten-free carrot cupcakes.
In the front row, DJ stood stock-still beside Kaylee, hands thrust into his little pockets. Daisy spotted us and waved. Behind her antler headband, her bangs stuck up in every direction.
“Pretty damn cute,” John murmured.
I squeezed his hand.
“Jingle bells, jingle bells...”
I leaned forward with the other mothers, nodding encouragement, mouthing along.
“Jingle all the waaaay...”
My phone rang, garnering dirty looks from everyone around us. I flushed and dug in my bag, glancing at the caller ID.Mom.
Anxious anticipation tightened my chest. I hitMUTE. “I have to take this,” I whispered to John.
“Can’t it wait?” he murmured.
Little Kaylee, overwhelmed by attention, broke down and had to be led to one side. Chris Murphy sat down and began taking off his shoes.“... one-horse open sleigh-aaay!”
I shook my head. “It’s my mother.”
“Honey, she’s fine.”
Miss Nancy coaxed Chris Murphy back into line.
“You don’t know that,” I said.
John gave me a patient look. “If something was wrong—something important—the rehab center would call you.”
Doubt made me pause. At the front of the room, Daisy jumped up and down, vigorously shaking her jingle bells.
But as soon as I met John’s eyes, I knew—he knew—what I was going to do.
“I’ll be right back,” I whispered.
And left my husband and children and went into the hall.
I can’t believe the case manager didn’t call me,” I said to John.
Parents and children eddied in the hall around us, spilling out of the classroom toward the parking lot.
“Honey, your mother fell. She’s fine,” John said with heavy patience. “Maybe next time she wants to go to the bathroom, she’ll remember to use her walker. Or wait for help.”
“I did bells, Mommy,” Daisy said.
“I heard, sweetie. Wonderful bells. So loud!” I smoothed her bangs under her reindeer headband. Turned back to John. “They still should have notified me.”
John plucked Daisy from the current, hoisting her in his arms. “What do you think you could have done?”
I didn’t know. Something. She’dcriedon the phone. My mother,who never cried about anything in her life. High, weak, gasping sounds that tore my heart. “I’m her daughter.”
“Right. Not her doctor. Or her husband.”
“Daddy didn’t even answer his phone,” I said. My father had been counseling a client in his storefront office when my mother fell. “Careful, DJ.”
I plucked him back from bumping into three-year-old Matthew Mackay. “Sorry,” I mouthed to Matthew’s mother. That’s how we identified ourselves in Bunyan. As somebody’s mother, as somebody’s wife.
