September 27, Sunday
ELAINE'S FACE filled the screen alone, which struck me as odd until I remembered it was Sunday and asked where everyone else had gotten to.
"Josh is asleep," she said. "Or pretending to be. I checked on him twenty minutes ago and he had his headphones on and his eyes closed, which in teenage boy language could mean either thing."
"And Lily?"
"Here somewhere. Getting her." Elaine set the laptop down and disappeared, and I heard muffled negotiation somewhere off-camera, the distinct cadence of a sixteen-year-old being coaxed into something she didn't want to do.
Lily dropped into frame a minute later, arms crossed, jaw set in a way that told me exactly how this call was going to go before she'd said a single word.
"Hi, sweetheart," I said. "I know tomorrow's a big day."
"Sixteen," she said flatly. "And you're not going to be there."
"I know. I'm so sorry, Lily. I wish more than anything I could be."
"You keep saying that. Sorry doesn't actually change anything.
" Her voice wavered, the anger cracking just enough to show the hurt underneath it, which somehow made it worse than the anger alone.
"This is supposed to be a big deal. I've been looking forward to my sixteenth birthday my whole life and you're going to miss it because you'd rather be locked in a hotel with strangers. "
"That's not fair, and you know it's not what I'd rather be doing. I promise I'll make it up to you. We'll do something huge when I'm home, whatever you want—"
"You can't make this up to me." She said it quietly, which hit me harder than shouting would have. "You can't get tomorrow back. There's no do-over for turning sixteen." She stood, the chair scraping audibly behind her. "I have to go get ready."
She was gone before I could answer. Elaine slid back into view, exhaling.
"She'll come around," Elaine said. "They're both still adjusting to the Heidi situation. It's a lot of change stacked on top of more change."
"I know." I pressed my fingers against my eyes for a second. "Did you get her something? From me?"
"Already handled. A gold necklace with her initial, wrapped and everything, card signed in your handwriting because I forged it beautifully." Elaine smiled. "She'll love it, even if she won't admit it in front of you for another six months."
"Thank you. Really. For all of it."
"That's what aunts are for." She softened, genuinely, the teasing dropping away for a second. "I'm glad I'm here, Isabel. Even if it's not the same as you being here."
"How was Dad's visit? Josh mentioned he was coming by."
"Pleasantly bland," Elaine said, already reaching for her phone.
"Here, I took pictures." She held the screen up to the laptop camera—Dad standing awkwardly between Josh and Lily, with Sandra off to the side.
Ordinary, forgettable, entirely uneventful.
"Nobody cried," Elaine said. "Nobody fought.
Very low bar these days, but we cleared it. "
"That's something, at least."
Elaine set the phone down and studied me a beat too long, the way she did when she was gearing up for something. "You know," she said, "Lily and Josh are going to be just fine. Absent father, mother who's… gone. It's basically the family formula at this point. And we turned out fine."
I bit my tongue to keep the words inside. Speak for yourself.