Chapter 8 Then
Then
It was the first time in a while that we were eating dinner together as a family. My mom had gotten takeout from a local Mexican restaurant that we loved—enchiladas and rice and beans. She was telling us about a patient at work whose ear had been itching for days.
“What was it?” I asked. “Something bad? It was something bad, wasn’t it?”
Dad laughed. “A spider? An earwig?”
“Is that why they’re called earwigs?” I asked. “Because they like to crawl in people’s ears?”
“That’s a wives’ tale,” Mom said.
Dad pointed at her with his fork. “I think the wives’ tale is that they would lay eggs in the ear and the babies would eat your brains.”
“I’ve never heard that,” I said.
“That’s because it’s not true,” Mom said.
“Good thing,” I said with a laugh. I cut off a piece of my enchilada, the cheese stretching from my fork to the plate as I lifted the bite to my mouth.
Just as I was starting to feel relieved that we were having a normal family dinner, that the tension from the past few weeks was just my imagination, my dad’s phone buzzed.
I hadn’t even noticed his phone was on the table.
Mom hated it when we had our phones out, and she looked at it now, sitting there by his plate.
Dad pretended not to hear it for a moment, but when she started talking again, telling us that it was actually a fly in the patient’s ear, he looked at his screen, tapping it to life.
“A fly?” I asked, disgusted. “Had it been in there since the maggot stage?”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “We got it out.”
Dad’s phone buzzed again.
“If we were at school, you’d have to put that in a lock bag,” I said.
“A lock bag?” he asked, distracted by the text.
“What’s a lock bag?” Mom asked.
“I’ve never told you about this?”
“I don’t think so,” she said.
I turned to face her more fully and she smiled in anticipation, as if this was going to be a funny story. “If we even just look at our phones during class time, teachers can make us lock it up in this small pouch until the end of the day.”
“Oh, right, I remember reading that in the school paperwork. So they take your phone?” she asked.
“Sounds like a liability,” Dad said.
I smirked at him. “Sounds like something a lawyer would say.”
“Good thing I am one.”
Mom stood to refill her water and she grabbed a bag of tortilla chips from the pantry.
“But no,” I said when she sat back down. “I think the school realized it would be a liability. That’s why the teacher doesn’t keep it. It’s a portable bag that they make the student carry around, locked, until they unlock it at the end of the day.”
“Wow,” Mom said. “So futuristic.”
“Have you ever gotten your phone locked up?” Dad asked.
I tilted my head at him in the Do you even know me? position. “I never even got my clip moved to yellow in elementary school. You think I’m getting my phone locked up?”
Dad’s phone buzzed again. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I have to take this. You can lock up my phone for the rest of the night after this.” He stood from the table, his plate of food only half eaten, and disappeared into his office, shutting the door.
Mom’s mood instantly shifted, her eyes going hard, her jaw tightening.
“Is Dad dealing with some kind of emergency?” Even if it was a client and therefore he couldn’t talk about it because of the whole confidentiality thing, I couldn’t think of a time he’d had to take after-hours calls for work.
He wasn’t a criminal attorney. He dealt with workers’ comp claims from federal workers.
Maybe the texts weren’t work-related? That thought scared me even more.
The thought of it being personal. He wouldn’t be so obvious if it was personal, right?
“Let’s not talk about it at the dinner table.” She was trying to hide how she really felt, but her words were stiff, short.
“Okay,” I said. Where were we allowed to talk about it? Because any time I asked if something was wrong, even outside of the dinner table, her answer was always: nothing.
I tried to make small talk as we kept eating, but she was only half listening, her eyes on the closed office door in between responses.
I’d never minded being an only child. My parents decided early on that they only wanted one.
My mom had a very hard pregnancy with me, and they didn’t want to risk even more complications trying for a second.
It had never bothered me. I understood. But I imagined, in moments like this, that it would’ve been nice to have a sibling.
Someone I could share a look with when things seemed weird or off at home.
Someone who would understand perfectly how I felt.
Or someone who would say I was overreacting or underreacting in situations.
But I didn’t have that. Maybe that’s why I was so close with my friends.
So it didn’t surprise me that after dinner, up in my room, I called my person. Beau.
“Hello,” he answered on the second ring.
“Do you know what I want?” I asked, sitting at my desk chair. I pushed off from the ground with my foot so I spun in a full circle.
He chuckled a little, probably because I started with a question instead of a greeting. “A photographic memory? Perfect penmanship? A lifetime supply of those Taco Bell Cinnabon treats?” he said, recalling the food I’d assigned his personality to.
“Already have that last one.”
“You don’t own me,” he said in a dramatic voice.
“Don’t I?”
“What do you really want?”
“I want one of those houses you see in movies where you can step out of your second-story window right onto the roof to sit and ponder life.”
“You’re scared of heights.”
“I wouldn’t be scared on a roof like that. It’s basically flat. I might have more insights on one of those roofs.”
“Everyone would,” he agreed. “What do you need insights about?”
“So many things, but tonight, uncooperative parents.” I summarized the dinner interaction.
“Could he just be stressed about work? I know my dad sometimes gets stressed about work.”
“Yeah…” That reminded me of the documents he hadn’t been able to find several weeks ago. I went to my backpack and pulled out my binder, flipping through the pages.
“What are you doing?” Beau asked.
“Looking for that essay we turned in a while ago. We got it back, right?” I remembered an A written in red ink at the top of the page.
I wouldn’t have gotten an A if I’d accidentally stapled my dad’s documents at the end of my essay, would I?
At the very least, she would’ve mentioned it.
Unless she didn’t read the entire essay.
Mr. Whit was known for not reading the entire essay.
I heard that people started writing nonsense on their last page just to be funny.
I’d never done that. Too risky. But Mrs. Lloyd was not Mr. Whit.
“Yes, we got it back,” Beau said. “Why?”
“Maybe I accidentally turned in some of my dad’s work papers. Here it is,” I said, once again noting the red A. I flipped to the back; there were no extra pages.
“Anything?” he asked.
“No.” I sighed. “You think I’m overreacting?”
“I didn’t say that,” he said.
“No, I want you to say if you think I’m making too much out of nothing here. It’s a sibling thing.”
“Excuse me?” he said.
I picked up a highlighter from my desk and twisted the cap several times. “That’s what siblings do for each other, right? They’re brutally honest, but in a loving way.”
“One, I’m not your sibling.”
“I know, but you’re the closest I have. And two?”
“Two?” he asked.
“You said one, so I assume there is at least a two. Maybe even a three and a four.”
“Oh, yes, there is a two. Two,” he said in a serious voice, “that’s not what siblings do for each other. At least not my siblings.”
“What do you do for each other?”
“My brother spies on me on the daily and reports to my mom. My sister takes my things and pretends like she didn’t. They can be brutally honest as well, but it’s rarely in a loving way.”
“Huh. Well, me and my siblings would tell each other if we were over- or underreacting.”
“Your siblings sound like they’d be really cool.”
“They would be,” I said with a smile.
“And no, I don’t think you’re overreacting. You feel how you feel.”
I stood up, walked to my window, and pulled the string on the blinds. It made a high-pitched zipping sound as the slats rose to the top of my window.
“What was that?” he asked.
“Me analyzing my roofline.”
“You don’t have one of those roofs. Do not climb out your window.”
I wouldn’t. Just looking down the pitch of my roof from up here made me dizzy. Across the street, a car I didn’t recognize sat parked with its lights on. I couldn’t see its occupant, but it was obviously running. It was probably a DoorDasher or something, lost.
“Are you climbing out the window?” he asked. Apparently I’d been quiet for too long.
“No. I’m trying to picture your house. Do you have one of those roofs?”
“Not out my window. Maybe my parents’.”
“Lucky.”
He laughed. “Next time they’re out of town, we’ll use it to ponder all of life’s mysteries.”
“Why not when they’re in town?” The car drove away and I lowered my blinds, realizing I was probably lit up like a television screen up here.
“Indy, what will the neighbors think?” he said in a chastising tone, channeling his mother, I was sure.
At first, I thought he was talking about my neighbors, seeing me now in my window. But then I remembered what we were actually talking about. Us sitting on his roof. “They might think you’re a normal teenager.”
“How dare you call me normal,” he teased.
“Does your mom make flyers of your accomplishments every year and distribute them to your street? That seems like something she would do, to remind them that she has the most perfect kids.”
“No, but she makes a yearly newsletter that she includes with our Christmas card.”
“I don’t think I knew that. Tell me she’s saved them all and I can read about the wonder that is the Eubanks family.
The treasure that is Beau. At two, were you already reading chapter books?
At five, playing piano concertos for visiting dignitaries?
” Beau could play the piano. Sometimes I forgot that because he didn’t do it much.
“My grandpa, you mean?”
I laughed. “I guess he’s the closest to a visiting dignitary that we know.”
“It feels like he is, considering the prep work that goes into everything before he arrives.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“What? Why?” he asked, obviously confused.
“People expect a lot from you.”
“It’s a good thing,” he said. “The more people expect, the more I push myself.”
“Leave some accomplishments for the rest of us.”
“You have plenty.”
I took two deep breaths, surprised at how much better I felt after our short conversation than I had in a while. “Hey, Beau?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
“For what?”
“For being my person.”