Chapter 8 #2
He spoke in such a serious tone that she wasn’t even sure where it came from.
As he continued to stare at her, he added, “It would be nice to have somebody around who can do things.”
She winced. He didn’t mean to say something hurtful.
She was sure it wasn’t really what he was trying to say.
It was more about another person, somebody who wasn’t as busy at times, somebody who maybe had more time, probably for Toby.
She sagged back down as she played with the food on her plate.
“So, do we have games and things this weekend?”
Immediately they both perked up and replied together again, in that same tone that freaked her out from time to time.
“Yeah.”
Toby was playing baseball and had a practice Saturday and a game Sunday, and Tabby was playing soccer.
Devon got up, pulled the calendar off the wall to add what everybody’s needs were.
By the time she had it marked down, she was informed that she was also supposed to provide refreshments for the soccer team.
She turned to Tabby and asked, “What does that mean?” Devon had a hazy idea, but it wasn’t as specific as she would like.
When she learned she must provide drinks or juices, things along that line, she mentally noted that she had to get back to the grocery store before the weekend.
She started a shopping list, even though she had just bought groceries.
It was already getting a little on the overwhelming side when Toby added, “And there’s a field trip next week. ”
She turned to stare at him and snapped, “What field trip, and how come I’m just now hearing about it?”
He shrugged. “You’re not just hearing about it, and you’re just hearing about it now because now you’re listening.”
She winced. “Is that how we need to handle this?”
He chuckled at her obviously fake outrage. “I did tell you about it,” he declared, with a shrug, “but you were busy last week, or maybe you were tired or something. I don’t know. You didn’t seem to be paying much attention to the details.”
She stared at him, realizing that he was talking about one of the days that she’d had a nighttime visitor. She groaned and muttered, “So, I guess I owe you an apology for that too.”
He shrugged. “No, you don’t. But I do need a permission slip signed, and I think you have to pay some money.” He shared this with his usual casual approach, as if unaware of money issues.
She winced again and smiled a bit as he turned to her.
“We do have money, don’t we?”
She frowned. “We have a little bit of money. We don’t have a lot because I make what I make, and we’re trying to live on that.”
He frowned at her and asked, “Can I go on the field trip?”
“Do you have the paperwork?”
He sighed. “I gave it to you.”
She cocked her eyebrow. “Oh no you don’t. That’s not happening. You didn’t give it to me. Period.”
He frowned at her and repeated, “I absolutely did.” Then he walked over to a little tiny desk where, in the olden days, a phone would have sat.
Then he called out to her, checking the paperwork around the table.
“I put it right here.” But no paperwork was there, so he looked at her again.
“It’s not here. I figured you must’ve put it somewhere to sign later. ”
She frowned at him. “Did you really put it there?”
“Yeah, of course I did,” he declared, staring at her. “I need that paperwork.”
“You’ll have to ask for another copy tomorrow,” Devon suggested, “because I didn’t see it.” She was already rummaging around looking for it, as she called out to him, “There’s no sign of it here.”
He frowned at her. “You sure you didn’t just misplace it?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” she replied in exasperation as she stared at him. “Are you sure you even put it here?” He nodded and she sighed. “In that case, somewhere along the line, we’ve lost it,” she stated, with a shrug. “So, we’ll just do whatever we need to do to get a new copy.”
“You could call the teacher,” he added helpfully, as he was already inching toward his bedroom.
She shook her head and repeated, “Tomorrow at school, you get another copy of the form. … Toby, do you hear me? Because if I don’t see it when I come home tomorrow, it’ll just get forgotten again, and you will not be going on that field trip.”
“I have to go,” he declared, staring at her in horror.
“Then bring me home another copy,” she said in exasperation.
“You could also call the teacher,” he replied. “She wants to talk to you anyway.”
She stared at him as another realization dawned of all the school things she would now have to deal with.
It was one thing to have been in their lives all these years, even taking them to school, taking them to sports, taking them to various functions.
It was another thing to realize that she was now 100 percent responsible for everything that happened.
She just shook her head and repeated, “Get me a copy.”
He disappeared into his bedroom, calling out, “They probably won’t give it to me.”
She looked over at Tabby, who was already on her phone. “Tabby, no phones at the table,” she snapped.
Tabby frowned at her but obediently put it back down again. “Everybody else has phones at the table,” she started.
“Other people may do it, but we don’t.”
“It’s just a phone. It’s not as if I’ll be answering calls or anything on it. That’s what a phone is for.” Tabby was in one of those moods. When she got up, she went to dump her half-eaten meal in the garbage.
Devon called out, “Don’t toss that, please. You can eat that later or tomorrow.”
She looked at her with an odd expression.
“We can’t really afford to start throwing out food. There’s nothing wrong with that meal. You’re just in a mood and don’t want to eat right now. I get that, but you don’t get to waste food.”
Looking down at it with a scowl, Tabby announced, “I don’t like it.”
“You liked it enough to eat the first half,” Devon noted in exasperation, as she got up and started to put away the leftovers. She watched out the corner of her eye as Tabby put her leftovers into a container and into the fridge.
That was better than the alternative. It was half a serving of good spaghetti, and there was no reason to start dumping food.
Even as Tabby took off, pouting, Devon felt a headache starting in the back of her head.
In many ways Tabby was way older than other kids her age, spoke with more maturity and sometimes acted it, but then there were other times…
She briefly wondered if the phone was worth all this drama but felt strongly that she needed to establish boundaries, and no phones at the table was one of them.
But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t have to deal with some pushback occasionally.
She got the kitchen cleaned up, then berated herself about not asking the kids to help with the dishes. Yet she chose to pick her battles and did it herself. She then made a cup of tea and walked out onto the deck. It was a little later than normal because of the shopping and the school activities.
But if she could just get a little time for herself, she would take it. As soon as she sat down on the deck—one day she aspired to have an actual patio table and chairs—damn if that same presence didn’t appear again. She bolted to her feet, spinning around to look behind her.
And, sure enough, something was there, but she didn’t know what, right beside her. It was different this time. It didn’t look the same. Or feel the same. Still a vague shimmery shape.
She wondered what it would take to have all this go away and to make her life normal, whatever normal was. And, for the first time, she had to wonder if buying this house had been a good deal or had she been taken by everybody around her, knowing how desperately she needed it.
Just because she was feeling crappy today didn’t mean that everybody out there was conspiring against her. Even though some days it sure felt that way.
She watched the weird shimmer. It was a little darker, a little smaller, a little less vibrant as it hovered there, somewhere around the second step down off her deck.
When a shout came from beside her, she turned to see Camden standing on his deck, pointing.
She nodded and got up, giving the shimmery shape a wide berth.
“It’s been here for about ten minutes,” she shared.
“And it’s different.” He came up to the fence, took one look, then hopped over. As he approached the shimmery shape, it started to fade away, something that did not upset her in the least. When he joined her, he asked, “How are you doing?”
She shrugged. “I’m living in a house with very strange things going on,” she snapped. “How do you think I am doing?”
He winced and nodded. “Yeah, I can see that, but how are the kids handling it?”
“Hopefully they haven’t seen it,” she said, “because I really, really don’t want them to deal with this too. We’ve got more than enough on our plate.”
He didn’t say anything at first, just looked around. “Any other instances?”
“No, no others, just this one.” She hesitated, then asked, “Did you get a chance to talk to that friend of yours?”
“I did, but not for very long. He got called away, but I’ll talk to him about it again. He told me that it was unusual, but that it did happen and that sometimes entities could get like this.”
“What do you mean, like this?” she asked. “It all seems so nefarious. So, is this a ghost breaking down and disappearing? Or is it so old it has nothing left to it? And why is this one different from the last?”
He nodded. “Both of those theories are possibilities. The trouble is, we don’t know what it is or why it’s different.
So we can’t really come up with any answers.
He did say that there was a certain camera that would allow us to see this a little more clearly,” he shared, “but they’re very expensive, and I presume you don’t have any extra funds to put toward this. ”
“God, no,” she muttered. “It’s all I can do to handle everything else that’s going on.”