Chapter 16 Calliope
CALLIOPE
Acouple of days after I split Elijah’s head open with the tiara, I sit in my office poring over countless emails voicing their displeasure at the delays from Christmas that have spilled into the new year.
I start being honest in my replies, ignoring protocol and telling anyone asking exactly what happened with the flood and the damaged stock. Surprisingly, most people email back with sympathetic understanding while only a few really dig their heels in about how unacceptable it is.
My fingers fly over the keys as I type out a reply to yet another email asking about extending their subscription through to June and what that would cost, but as I get halfway through the paragraph, my mind wanders back to Elijah.
And that kiss.
The moment he brought up what happened at the convention, I should have left. I should have told him his girlfriend cheating on him was karma and then left. But I didn’t. I stayed and he kissed me, and that’s all I’ve been able to think about since.
Elijah’s taller than me, but even with that kiss, I’ve always marveled at how nothing is intimidating about the way he leans down to meet me.
There wasn’t then and it remains the same now.
But it was just a kiss, a single press of lips that unlocked a ball of tension in my chest and made me feel, just for a second, like it was safe to lean into him and trust him.
Like I could fall and he would catch me, and for the first time in years, I would have support.
But Elijah isn’t supportive.
He isn’t anything to me. Not really.
It wasn’t even that good of a kiss.
So why can’t I stop thinking about it? Why does my heart flutter every time I hear footsteps in the hall as if I expect him to come and see me again?
I stare at the half-written email until the words blur and then close my eyes with a soft sigh.
I don’t need this kind of distraction right now.
Focusing too much on Elijah means I can’t dig into this acquisition properly.
All I want to know is how safe my job is.
That’s all. With Nick having a great time at school and catching up with all his friends, I’ve been able to pawn him off with playdates and more in order to spend more time at the office, but my searches have revealed nothing.
Maybe I will have to lean into Elijah just enough to find out what is going on.
I could reach out to someone else, but who around here has their ear to the floor enough to pick up on anything?
By the time six o’clock rolls around, I’ve exhausted my possibilities and Elijah continues to invade my thoughts on the drive home.
Every time I breathe in, I can smell him.
I’m hyper-aware of my lips and the ghost of pressure he left behind, and the fact that I haven’t even seen him the past couple of days ignites a ball of worry in my gut that the blow to his head was more than it seemed.
By the time I get home, I’m worried. Should I call him? Hardly a good idea, but I should make sure he hasn’t ended up in the hospital or something. Phone in hand, I let myself into the house… and stop dead.
At my feet, strips of damp wallpaper curl around one another on the carpet and a sharp scent in the air tickles my nose. I lift my head and my mouth falls open.
The once warm, welcoming hallway is now completely void of life.
The wallpaper has been stripped from halfway up the wall all the way down to the floor and it lies in piles around the skirting board.
Peeling, crumbling plaster now sits in its place and as the front door closes behind me, clouds of plaster dust shake free and rise up into the air.
The table has been removed, and the coat rack is empty except for a lone blue scarf hanging dejectedly from a hook.
“Mom?” I call the moment I find my voice, gazing around in horror. “Mom!”
“In here!” comes her cheerful voice from the living room.
I step forward cautiously, carefully avoiding the larger clumps of wet wallpaper. The line of wallpaper that remains up near the ceiling ends at a height that suspiciously matches my mother, and the living room isn’t any different.
In fact, it’s worse.
The walls have been stripped much the same, with only half the wallpaper removed from the highest Mom could reach all the way down to the floor.
Most furniture has been moved away from the walls and are covered in blankets—soft, cotton blankets rather than plastic—and they’re dotted with fallen bits of wallpaper and a few other bits of dust and dirt that’s clumped up on the fabric.
The curtains have been removed from the window with some force, judging by the unnatural bend to the railing that remains, and all the knick-knacks have been removed from the wall cabinet.
Except Dad’s urn.
It rests on the empty mantelpiece, looking exceptionally lonely without the flowers that once surrounded it.
“Mom.” I can barely speak. “What have you done?”
She stands near the wall cabinet with a metal scraper in hand and a wide smile on her face. Her gray curls are scraped back from her face by a colorful strip of yellow fabric and damp streaks of plaster cling to her cheeks.
“What does it look like?” she answers shortly. “Use your eyes, for goodness’ sake.”
My relationship with her has been on thin ice these past few days. That ice just broke.
“Are you insane?” It explodes out of me in a wave.
“What the hell are you playing at? Look at the walls! This is terrible! And the blankets? Mom, I brought this from home. This is Nick’s baby blanket, why the hell would you use it to protect the damn couch?
” Surging forward, I snatch up the now-stained blue blanket from the end of the couch and rapidly shake it to dislodge any caught pieces of wallpaper.
“Oh,” Mom replies flatly. “I didn’t realize.”
“It has his name on it!” Grabbing the embroidered corner, I thrust it toward her. “What have you done? The carpet’s ruined with all this… and where are the flowers? Mom, what were you thinking?”
“What was I thinking?” she snaps. “I was thinking my daughter doesn’t get to decide what I do in my own home! I was thinking I was tired of how this place looks and I was going to do something about it! I thought you’d be pleased.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “Pleased? Why would I be pleased?”
“You keep harping on about it being too expensive, so I’m doing it all by myself.”
I gape at her and my mind is utterly blank for a few long seconds. “Oh, really? You’re going to strip this entire house and redecorate it by yourself? Who is going to get the wallpaper that you can’t reach, hmm?”
“I’ll ask a friend.”
“And how will you pay them?”
“With dinner, of course.”
“Dinner I pay for! And what about the repairs to the actual walls?” I throw my hand toward one of the cracks. “Who will fix that?”
“I will!”
“And who will pay for the plaster, hmm? Who will pay for the new wallpaper and paste? Who will pay to get the carpets cleaned and the air fumigated from all this dirt and dust? Who will get the couches cleaned and these blankets washed? Who will pay for the new paint and the new curtains, Mom? Me! That’s who! ”
“It’s not all about you, Calliope!” Mom yells suddenly, clutching the scraper to her chest.
“It is when I’m the one paying for it all! It’s my money keeping the lights on, don’t you get that?”
“Don’t yell at me!” She yells right back. “You’re upsetting me!”
“This is upsetting! Mom! How could you think this was a good idea? Did you think everything would magically fall into your lap? Did what happened at the grocery store not give you even the slightest indication of our financial struggles?”
“Oh, here we go. Everything is my fault and you’re fine. Everything I do is bad and crazy and destroying this family while you just skate by!”
“Mom, I’m not skating by. Do you really want to live in a home that looks like this?” I point at the walls, struggling to lower my voice. “Do you think I’d want to raise Nick in a dust-infested house?”
“Nick is fine,” Mom snaps. “Not that you would know because you’re never here, are you?”
The rage that swells up in response to her accusation is immediately bottled by a gasp from the doorway. I spin, and Nick stands there clutching his teddy and staring at the mess the living room has become.
“Mom? Why are you yelling?”
“Hey, sweetie. We weren’t yelling,” I say as I approach him, though my voice still trembles under the tight anger sitting hot in my chest.
“So, you’re lying to him now?” Mom remarks snarkily from behind me.
I grit my teeth as I crouch down and poke Nick lightly in the tummy. “Have you eaten?”
He immediately starts coughing, so I sweep him up into my arms and carry him out of the living room and away from the dust. “Grandma gave me pizza,” he says with a giant yawn.
Of course she did. “What kind?”
“Cheese.”
“And?”
“Ham!” He wiggles in my arms. “It was so good. I was going to save you some, but umm…” He leans back in my arms and thrusts the teddy into my face as we reach the kitchen. “Teddy was hungry too.”
“I bet he was. It’s important for Teddy to eat.”
“That’s what I said!” His face lights up as I set him down on the counter, but his smile vanishes quickly. “Are you and Grandma mad at each other?”
Her biting words sweep back into my mind, so I nod. “Just a little.”
“You should talk. Or tell someone. My teacher says… she says that if you get mad at a friend and you can’t talk to them, you should tell someone and they can help.”
Keeping one hand on his abdomen so he doesn’t fall from the counter, I collect a glass from the cupboard above his head. “That’s true. Your teacher is right.”
“So, should I tell my teacher that you and Grandma are mad at each other?”
I glance down at him as a soft laugh rises in me. “No, baby. Don’t do that.”
“Why not? She can help!”
The glass fills with water and I take several deep gulps, using the chill to break up the hot anger in my chest. Once I’m finished, I gasp and lick my lips. “Well… your Grandma and I would need a special teacher. A grown-up one.”
“Ahh.” Nick nods knowingly. “I’ll ask my teacher if she knows any grown-up teachers.”
“You do that,” I reply. My breathing becomes easier as Nick abandons his teddy and reaches for my water with both hands. Not resisting, I let him take the glass and drink the rest. My heart swells when he mimics my gasp and beams up at me.
“Come on.” Setting the glass aside, I scoop him back into my arms. “Tell me about your day.”
Nick immediately launches into a highly detailed explanation of his day from the moment I dropped him off at pre-school.
While I take him for a bath, he tells me all about the words he learned, the toys he played with, the friends he made and how excited he is for his birthday next month because the teacher has put his name on the celebration board.
Out of all the kids there, his birthday is next.
Once he’s washed and dried, teeth brushed and hair combed, I tuck him into bed and settle next to him with a book of fables. Halfway through reading an altered version of Thumbelina, Nick falls asleep while tucked up against my chest and I trail off into silence.
Moments like this make me feel like everything is going to be fine. But with Mom acting like she is, that feeling won’t last.
I can’t fathom the cost of the repairs to the damage she’s caused, but it’s made one thing crystal clear. I need to find out what’s happening at work. No more distractions.
While Nick sleeps soundly beside me, I dig my phone out of my pocket and send a quick text to Victoria.
[Calliope] Hey, you’re the queen of the rumor mill, right?
She replies almost instantly.
[Vic] Yes, Ma’am.
[Calliope] Have you heard these rumors about the company shutting down? Or anything shutting down? Overheard something about the stores in the breakroom, but couldn’t get details.
Her reply sends my heart down into a dark pit in my stomach.
[Vic] I’ve heard a rumor, but I know one thing. If anything is closing down, it won’t be the stores.