That was Something
*
When plans detour.
I rushed my goodbyes, barely paying attention, as I held my cell phone to my ear.
My dad was still pouting. My mom was asleep until the second he asked, “Who are you talking to on the phone?”and I answered, “Robert.”
Then, she magically woke up.
“Robert? Oh, can I ask him about his dig?”
I smiled weakly as Robert said, “Please no,” on the line.
“He doesn’t have good service,” I said flatly, like we hadn’t FaceTimed for two hours the night before as he sat in a rundown steakhouse, which, surprisingly, had Wi-Fi.
My mother scowled, and I stood there silently.
Robert sighed and said, “Hand her the phone.”
No one could handle the silent Maggie guilt trip.
So, I sat beside my mother’s bed and put the phone on speaker. She asked him thousands of questions.
She learned more about the dig in thirty minutes than I had in two weeks.
“It’s a Paleoindian and starts in the Clovis period.”
My mother turned to my dad, and he answered, “That’s pretty old, like six thousand years ago, right?”
Robert cleared his throat. “Older, about thirteen thousand.”
My mom laughed and grinned. “So, no dinosaurs?”
Robert snorted. “That’s too deep and far back for me. It’s off by about sixty-six million years.”
I could see confusion growing on my mother’s face. I reached forward and touched her hand. “It’s a common mix-up,” I said gently. “Paleontologists do the dinosaur thing. Robert’s more pottery sherds and arrowheads.”
Instead of laughing it off, she snapped, “I know Robert is an archaeologist. I just thought they occasionally dug up animal bones.”
Even though Robert said nothing, I knew he was tensing up. My mother had to be correct, and I’d just insulted her.
“Yep, you are right, Maggie. One of the crew found a mammoth tusk the other day.”
My mother turned to me, her face smug. I wanted to say, “ A woolly mammoth is not a dinosaur, ” but I shut my mouth.
Fighting with a dying woman was a moot point.
After another twenty minutes of questions, Robert faked bad service to end the call. I silently thanked him as it gave me an out.
Jean returned to the house, only to storm out and drive away without a word. I didn’t chase her.
I used to. I used to try. But what’s the point in chasing someone who doesn’t want to be caught?
I left moments later, mumbling something about needing groceries. Another lie, another exit strategy.
Back at the apartment, the silence felt like a reset. I replaced the sheets, started the laundry, and scrubbed the counters until they shone.
I cleared my little rat’s nest on his side of the bed and placed my miscellaneous purchases in the closet. There was no point in letting him see how random I’d become while he was away.
After hours of silence, I sat at the edge of the bed, staring at the clean sheets. No more noise. No more tension. Just me. Alone.
Then my phone rang. At eight p.m., Rob had hit Iowa.
I lay in bed, talking to him, letting his voice lull me to sleep. It felt like we were teenagers again.
Sometime in the night, he slipped into bed beside me, warm and familiar. I barely stirred, but I felt it—his weight shifting the mattress, his arm draping over my waist.
As the sun poured into the room, I finally let myself breathe. Robert was home.
In our two weeks apart, his beard had returned, with its ginger, brown, and blond strands poking out. He was shirtless, with his chest hair lining his skin. I just wanted to hug him. I reached forward to push his hair out of his forehead when he let out a loud snort.
I recoiled, realizing he was still asleep. I took a deep breath, thinking about my day. I needed to take his car to the garage. He’d be taking mine back to the site.
I turned and started crawling out of bed when I felt arms wrap around my waist, pulling me back.
I curled into his chest as his cheek met mine.
“I wasn’t certain you would wake up,” he whispered.
I smirked and rolled back to face him, stretching my jaw. “Yeah, great job letting me sleep on my phone.”
He kissed the tip of my nose. “I tried to move it, but you refused to budge. I thought you might wake up when I took a shower.”
I leaned up to look toward the bathroom. Sure enough, dirty clothes were on the floor. “You took a shower?”
“I made dinner, watched TV, and accidentally dropped a plate. You never moved.”
I snorted. “Well, would you like to do something that isn’t sleeping?”
I grinned at him as he inhaled deeply, closing his eyes.
“No matter how great that sounds, Bree, I just need to lie here for the next two days. I’ve been counting the hours to get back here—and I still feel like a ghost in my body.”
I noticed his voice cracked. He said he hated this on the first night of the dig. Then, there were those pauses during the calls. Was he unhappy, or was it like a child at summer camp?
I wanted to solve this, but my brain finally processed his words. “Wait, what? Two days? You’re off for four.”
He nodded. “Today is day one, tomorrow is day two. I need to be ready to make camp on Tuesday, meaning I need to leave Monday evening.”
My brain ran through the math, and I wanted to complain that technically, he could drive back Tuesday morning. Yet, I knew once he set his mind to this, he would follow this plan for the remainder of the season.
I had spent the last ten days waiting for this moment. Waiting for Robert to come back. To us. To me.
And now, he was already leaving.
Fuck, of course, he would be.
I was so excited to have him back that I forgot this was a set change. It wasn’t an actual intermission. It was the frantic flipping of a tree behind the curtain to look like a pillar. We’d continue this isolation for another ten days, then another ten until August.
I nodded and snuggled into him. He pulled me tighter as I inhaled his scent of cheap men’s body wash and sweat, as I allowed myself to be held.
When I opened my mouth to suggest food, I could hear a soft snoring on the side of my head.