She answers after a few rings, which I’m a little surprised at. She’s beyond busy these days; I wasn’t sure she’d answer at all.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hi.” Her voice is a little distracted. “What’s up?”
I clear my throat, unsure how to proceed. I’m not really big on heart-to-heart conversations, but if there’s one person who will be honest with me and completely nonjudgmental, it’s Denice.
“Am I immature?” I finally say.
“Yes,” she says. “You’re immature.”
I can’t quite stop my shoulders from sagging, even though I expected this answer. “Yeah. Okay. How so?”
“Do you have time for the list?”
My lips twitch at this. “Denice,” I say. “I’m serious.”
She hums, but when she speaks again, she’s no longer teasing. “You want maximum output with minimum effort,” she says. “Part of that is just good sense?—”
“It’sgreatsense,” I point out.
“But you miscalculate and take the easy way out when it would be more beneficial to do the work.”
I let those words stew for a second, turning them over in my mind. “You’ve given this some thought, I see.”
Her laugh isn’t a confirmation, but it’s not a denial, either. “You’re smart, Roman. But you calculate everything, and sometimes your calculations are wrong. You went to college, got a degree, tried working for a few months, got bored, and decided it would be easier to work for Dad. You’ve been following him around ever since. It’s been years.”
“Ouch,” I say. The word is casual, but the arrow pierces deep.
“Sorry,” she says gently. “But it’s true.”
She’s right. That’s what makes it so painful. The portrait of my life is unimpressive.
I take a deep breath as the realization sinks further into my mind—and as it produces an almost desperate desire to do something. To climb out of the pit I’ve happily wandered into.
Instead I drift away from the window and sit on the edge of my bed.
“How’s Nessa?” I say, aimlessly smoothing my pillowcase.
“She’s good,” Denice says, an unmistakable note of adoration entering her voice now. “She’s the cutest thing that has ever existed.”
“She really is,” I agree. I have a stupid amount of photos on my phone, half of them identical, all of them featuring the chubby, long-lashed baby who’s stolen my heart in a way I never believed possible. “I’ll come see you guys later. Maybe this evening or tomorrow night.”
“You can change her diaper while you’re here,” she says, and I grin.
“I’ll do it. Let me know if you need help with anything else while I’m there. I know Louis works long hours.”
“I will,” Denice says, and in the background a baby starts crying. She sighs, but she doesn’t sound at all upset when she goes on, “I have to hop off.”
“Yep,” I say, still smoothing my pillowcase. “Thanks, Denice. I’ll talk to you later. I’ll drop by soon and do some diaper duty.”
“Love you!” she says, and I’m about to respond, but she hangs up before I can speak.
So I end the call and toss my phone to the side, halfway across the sparsely made bed, before looking around my room.
It’s an odd mixture of styles, because I’m not finished moving in yet. I couldn’t bring myself to sleep on the mattress mygrandparents slept on. It felt wrong on multiple levels, many of them gross. So I got rid of their old bed and brought mine in instead, but the curtains are still the heavy brown ones that were in here, and there’s a chair in the corner that probably hasn’t moved an inch in thirty years. There are boxes stacked in front of the mirrored closet doors, and although I’ll unpack at some point—soon—I don’t want to do it right this second.
Despite Aurora’s claim that everything here was dark and dusty, I have aired the place out several times already. It was like a crypt when I first showed up a month ago. The house had been sitting empty for years, not yet in disrepair but definitely not livable. I spent about a week with the doors and windows all thrown open for hours at a time, every single day.
