But also:
What time do you work ’til tomorrow?
Have you by any chance seen my laptop sleeve?
I probably won’t see you before you leave for work; I’m totally going to sleep in.
Love you, Jess.
It reminds me of something.
Her bedroom door is open, and I hesitate before I peek in.
I picture an envelope again. This time, left for me on a bed, or a nightstand. Maybe a small desk I saved for and assembled myself.
She wouldn’t, I think.She’s not Mom.
But when I finally gather my courage and look, I could be forgiven for thinking she is.
* * *
WHAT’Sclear is that she hasn’t gone yet.
First of all, there’s no envelope.
But there is a suitcase on the bed, looking fully packed, still unzipped. There’s Tegan’s faded, worn backpack resting alongside it. There’s her open laptop on that desk I labored over, its screen dark in sleep, its power cord already coiled for storage. That sleeve I told her she could find in the front closet ready beside it.
Maybe she’s written me an email, instead.
For a few seconds, I simply gape at the scene in front of me; I try to make some other sense of it. Maybe it’s some kind of weird practice run for the only trip we have planned for this summer—the one where we’ll get her set up at school.
But even I know a single suitcase and backpack isn’t how a dorm move-in is meant to look.
My phone pings in my back pocket, and I rush to pull it out.
Sorry to bother you, it reads.But your 10:30 showed up early. Should I tell her you’re on your way? Sorry again, I know you’re rushing!!
I blink down at the text from Ellie, who runs the front desk and does shampoos sometimes when we’re shorthanded. She’s twenty years old and she’s only worked at the salon for a month and a half, and the twosorrys are typical. I’m quiet at work—quiet everywhere, really—and I’m pretty sure Ellie thinks that means I don’t like her.
My reply won’t help.
Cancel morning appts, I type out with shaky fingers, pressing send.
Anyone else, I know, would add something. An explanation, an apology.Family emergency, anyone else might say, to make sure everyone knew it was serious.
But I haven’t been anyone else in ten years.
And no one gets to know about my emergencies.
I navigate to my text box with Tegan, but before I send out a panickyWhere are you?I pause and swipe to my email instead.
Just to make sure there’s not an envelope waiting for me there.
What loads, though, is the usual—a notification about auto-payment on the electric bill, a promise for the sale of the season at a place where I haven’t shopped in years, a reminder from one of my streamers that I still have episodes left on a mediocre medical drama I gave up on a few weeks ago.
My heart is pounding in my ears.
Or . . . is that not my heart?
