44. Charlotte Social Life
Charlotte Social Life
I don’t know why, but ordeals like these always call for a shower. I wasn’t dirty in the traditional sense, but I felt it all the same. I let Iris go first since, come on, she was the real hero of the day, a fact that made me nothing short of nauseated. I wanted to wrap her in bubble wrap with a small nose and mouth hole for breathing and keep her in the closet so nothing bad could ever happen to her. That should really be an option parents can choose at birth. I was proud of her moxie. But it also terrified me. Why was it that our best qualities could also put us in harm’s way?
The phone rang beside me. I picked it up, recognizing the number right away—wishing that I had never had to recognize the number, feeling in the depths of my bones that I wouldn’t have to see it much more.
“Hi, babe,” I answered.
We had discerned that he could hear me even as the voice was playing asking if I would accept the charges for the collect call from the correctional center.
“I’m coming home tomorrow!” the ecstatic voice on the other end of the line said.
I had pictured this moment so many times, held a vision for it. And yet, it wasn’t at all what I expected. As tears streamed out of my eyes, I flopped back onto the mattress. “Tomorrow is the best day of my entire life!” I said through my tears.
“You’re telling me,” Bill said.
I was so overwhelmed with joy and relief that I couldn’t even respond.
“So, how is it being home?” Bill asked.
Iris walked into my room, wet hair in a towel, wrapped in a fluffy bathrobe. “It’s Dad!” I said, putting Bill on speaker, biting my lip, wondering why, now that we knew we were safe. Shouldn’t Iris and I have rushed home immediately? Showered in our own showers? I reasoned that it was because all our stuff was here, but that didn’t seem quite right. All of our real stuff was at home. I knew Iris and I hadn’t discussed going home yet for bigger reasons than that.
“Iris!” Bill said. “How is it to be home?”
She was obviously quicker than I was because Iris said, “Mom and I decided that we want to spend our first night back at home with you, as a family.”
I could hear that Bill was choked up when he said, “Oh, girls. That is just the best thing I’ve ever heard. I’m counting down the minutes until I see you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow!” Iris squealed back at him.
“We can’t wait to get you back,” I said. “Love you, Bill.”
“Love you both,” he said.
Iris flopped down on the bed beside me. “You did that,” I said. That wasn’t 100 percent true. The feds and Oliver had both independently solved most of what was going on by the time Iris did—hence the FBI’s truly perfect timing—but she was at least on their heels, which was pretty impressive for a fourteen-year-old who had never even really been that into Nancy Drew.
“Yeah. I’m like that,” she said. She paused and turned her head to look at me. “Should we unpack why we haven’t gone home yet, or just let it ride?”
I sighed. “Pretty smooth how you lied there. I didn’t just love how easily that slid out.”
She raised her eyebrows at me. “You should be thanking me for saving you instead of scolding me for lying. What would Dad think if we told him we didn’t want to go home?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to go home,” I said. “It’s just that we’ve had a nice time here, and it’s going to be different going home alone.”
“Quiet,” Iris chimed in.
“But I am excited to go home,” I said, “especially now that it means going home with Dad.”
“Same,” Iris said. “And it’s only, like, two blocks away. We don’t need to be dramatic. We’ll still see everyone all the time.”
“Right,” I agreed. “Want to go see what they’re doing?”
Iris nodded. “Last night at the mommune.”
“Last night at the mommune.” It was weird how now, knowing it was over, that made me so sad.
When we walked downstairs, Julie, Grace, Alice, Emma, and Merit were all waiting to hug Iris. Grace put her arm around her and said, “I’ve made you fresh warm cookies and milk. You’ve had quite the ordeal today. And you were quite the hero.”
“Grace, I really was.”
We all laughed.
Iris looked around. “Julie, where are the girls? It’s our last night!”
She smiled. “They’re at ballet, but they’ll be home in time for dinner.”
“So what I want to know,” I said, “is how exactly you came to obtain the phone you used to record Jeremy.”
Alice shook her head. “Jeremy,” she whispered. “It’s going to take a while to come to terms with that one.”
Merit and Iris shared a look that I found very interesting. It was a secret look, a brother-and-sister one.
“Oh, no, no,” Grace said. “Whatever it is, you two need to spit it out.”
Iris scrunched her nose.
“Honey,” I said, “I’m so happy you’re safe and Dad is coming home that I don’t care about much else right now.”
“Well…” Merit started.
“They have burner phones!” Emma exploded. She reached into her pocket and handed Merit twenty dollars.
“What?” Grace and I said at the same time.
“Like drug dealers?” Alice asked.
“That’s what I said!” Iris added.
Grace looked at Merit. “So, on the one hand, you should technically be punished for the burner phone. On the other, you might have saved Alice. Bill too.”
“I vote no punishment for Merit!” Julie said with the voice of a warrior.
I jumped in. “I mean, it is a little unrealistic for teenagers to have to be without their phones from six p.m. on anyway. Eight or nine? Sure. But I vote that this wasn’t Merit’s fault.”
Grace sighed. “Fine. No grounding, but also no burner phones. I mean, the things you don’t even think you would have to say.”
“While everyone is being so forgiving…” Iris said. “Chloe, Daphne, and I sort of broke into our house a few weeks ago. And Jeremy was in there stealing statements, and we maybe didn’t tell you—”
“What?” I protested, feeling like couldn’t breathe.
“But you didn’t even tell me that we could get back into our house,” Iris said. “So I think we’re even.”
“No punishments!” Merit said. “Now walk away slowly,” he whispered to Iris.
It occurred to me then that, for just a few weeks, my only child had experienced what it was like to have five siblings. I hoped this experience would bond them, that they would stay in touch. I was holding the glee of having Bill back in my life in one hand and the sadness of leaving these people who felt like family in the other. It was hard to reconcile the two. But I would, I knew. Because tomorrow was a fresh start. Tomorrow was the new beginning we had hoped and prayed we would get. And now, it was only a day away.