Page 21 of Room to Breathe
“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 thebite 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 justlookat 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 theDo 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. Wherewerewe 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 onlyhalf 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.