September 2, Wednesday
THE SCREEN blinked on at six o'clock, and I felt my chest seize before either of the kids said a word.
Lily leaned in. "Mom." Her voice already had that wobble in it, the one that meant tears were staged and waiting in the wings. "I can't do this anymore."
"Do what, honey?"
"Everything." She held up a fistful of fabric to the camera—unmistakably a pair of underwear, tags still attached. "I had to buy new underwear because the laundry situation has gotten inhumane. There's a pile in the hallway that's basically its own zip code now."
"Have you tried running a load?"
"I don't know how the machine works! It has, like, four dials and none of them make sense."
Josh, wedged into the corner of the frame with Tucker's head in his lap, didn't look up from whatever he was doing on his own phone. "I've worn the same boxers three days in a row," he offered. "It's fine. Nobody can tell."
Lily recoiled. "That's disgusting."
I inhaled for strength. "How's school going, you two? Anything I should know?"
"Fine," Lily said, in the tone that meant nothing was fine and she had no intention of elaborating.
"It's school," Josh said, which I gathered was the male translation of the same sentiment.
"No tests, no projects, nothing due?"
Twin shrugs, perfectly synchronized despite two years of practiced sibling disdain for anything the other one did.
"Have you talked to your dad about the laundry? He could show you how to use the machine."
Lily's face crumpled. "Dad doesn't care about anything except Heidi.
He's basically never even home. He shows up, drops off pizza money, then disappears until midnight.
We've had DoorDash six nights straight," she went on, gathering steam now.
"Six. I'm going to get so fat, Mom, and nobody even cares. "
Josh lifted his hand. "I've had pizza every single night and I feel great."
"MOM." Lily's voice cracked upward into a register I associated with fire alarms. "Are you even listening? This is a crisis."
"I'm listening," I said, keeping my voice level though something in my stomach had begun to twist. "I hear you. It sounds hard."
"It is hard. You have no idea what it's like here."
"You could call Aunt Elaine," I offered. "She's five minutes away, and she'd come do a load of laundry with you in ten minutes if you asked."
Lily's face shut like a door. "I don't want Aunt Elaine. I want you."
To be there to do things for her, I realized. "I know, sweetheart, but I'm not able to be there right now."
"Because you'd rather be on some jury than take care of us."
"That's not fair, Lily."
"Nothing about this is fair."
She reached forward, and the screen went dark before I could answer.
I sat there a long moment, the small conference room humming faintly around me, one hand pressed flat against my stomach where the ache had settled and would probably be there for four more months.