Rory finds the number she needs and musters up a good mood voice while it rings. “Hi, Nancy, it’s Rory. I’m terribly sorry to cancel last minute, but can we reschedule tutoring for tomorrow?”
With her calendar now out, a separate leather-bound book, she scrawls an arrow toward the following day, gets off the phone, and immediately dials another number. This one she knows without consulting the Buddha. Before the voice on the other end has an opportunity to greet her, Rory starts in.
“Where the hell were you?” Her teacher’s voice has turned aggressive and hollow, almost daring.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“If you were sorry we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Again.”
“I’m expected to all but sleep here.”
Rory holds the phone away from her ear and talks loudly into the receiver. “She is your mother. This cancer will kill her. Soon. Did they skip the definition of hospice in law school?”
“Don’t talk to me like I’m a child,” he says, though he sounds like a child.
Rory slams her hand against the steering wheel of her still-parked car. “Damn it, Brian, THIS ISN’T ABOUT YOU. We’re talking about forty-five minutes, once a week.”
“That I don’t have. I wish you’d stop treating me like a pile of shit for it.”
“God. This is my fault, now?”
He clears his throat, which seems to strengthen his resolve. “We can’t all be Rory Murray, Salt of the Fucking Earth.”
“Fine,” Rory says, defeated. “Focus on you. That’s what you’re good at.”
This is my chance to get deeper into her thoughts. I zero in with willful concentration, intense to the point of exhaustion, and suddenly I feel it. A sensation. A flash. An understanding. Rory is alone and scared. She does not know what to do.
Brady and Eve can relate. And if I can read people’s minds then certainly I can influence their actions. This woman is my chance to make things right. My family deserves more than I left behind.
Eve
Today is Mother’s Day.
My first thought is stupid: my mom isn’t here, so the holiday doesn’t exist. But the rest of the world doesn’t celebrate my mom, they celebrate their moms, and their moms didn’t recently jump off a building.
My father claims he’ll be stuck in a hotel conference room negotiating a deal of “strategic importance” with a bunch of people I’ll never know. I guess it’s possible. He says when it gets to the end of a merger you work straight through till it’s done, but the timing is suspect. Today is going to suck. A meeting that goes from freaking eight in the morning to eight at night on a Sunday is something even Mom would’ve considered a little too convenient.
I’m swirling cereal around the bowl when Dad walks in, suited up for his big meeting. If he’s lying to get out of the tennis tournament he at least feels bad enough to wear a costume that matches his cover story. I wonder how he’ll handle this moment. Baby me? Ignore the significance of the day altogether? Without Mom telling him what to do, he’s a dud at parenting.
“Say you’re sick,” he offers. His eyes shift around the room, working hard not to land on me.
“Huh?”
“Skip the tournament. Everyone will understand.”
He did not just say that. I give him an icy glare. “Pretty sure Mom wouldn’t tell me to bail on a commitment just because it was gonna be rough.” He doesn’t have a comeback, so he grabs a water bottle from the fridge and leaves for work.
I don’t have time to be pissed that my father has the emotional maturity of a toddler, because my ride arrives. I wait for the horn to blare before getting up, delaying the start of this depressing day. It takes Kara all of thirty seconds to lose it. She’s a spaz. On our eighth grade trip to D.C., she jumped in a fountain because she was hot, then freaked when they sent her home for it. She seriously has zero self-control. I ditch breakfast, grab my tennis bag, and head out.
Kara’s ghostlike coloring gives away her hangover, which is strange since we never party before game days. I wonder where everyone met up, then remember I don’t care. John is with his family opening their Cape house for the spring, so I’m not surprised no one thought to call. Mourning a parent is way too heavy for my crowd.
Kara drives while her mom rides shotgun, so at least I have the backseat to myself. Like my dad, they both avoid looking at me. Apparently, not having a mother on Mother’s Day is something I should be embarrassed about. Whatever. Anything is better than the hysteria Kara brought to my mother’s funeral, where she bawled as if she were the one left behind. I didn’t get why she’d make such a scene until my father and I led the procession out and I saw her folded up in Jake’s arm, a spot she’d been jonesing for all year. Always nice to see a tragic death exploited for a high-school hookup.
“Wind will be twenty miles an hour from the northwest,” Kara reports. I nod, not that anyone’s watching. “The end courts will be the worst, especially the side closest to the field.”
Kara always talks up an excuse for getting her ass kicked. When her ball hits the net it’s because of the wind, or a baby crying, or the sun’s glare. It’s never because she tilted her racket too far.
“Good point,” Mrs. Anderson pipes in. “The court we get will matter.”
Kara’s mom considers her and her daughter a single unit, using words like we and our when referring to things Kara will experience on her own. She even puts her hair in a high pony and wears a tennis skirt to our matches, as though she might be called in to sub. My mom hated gossip, but I once heard her rag on Mrs. Anderson, “The coach needs to pull that lunatic aside and break the news she didn’t make the team. Our turn ended three decades ago. Christie seriously needs to get over it.” When Dad joked that my mom sounded jealous she said, “I’m not gonna lie, I’d take her body if it was completely detached from her heart and her brain.” I find the memory particularly funny as Kara and Mrs. Anderson agree their court assignment will be critical.
“They still haven’t fixed the crack on court three. Coach claims it isn’t a tripping hazard, but I took a digger on it yesterday.” Mrs. Anderson clucks like a chicken to show her disapproval. I swear she could be the billboard for what annoying looks like.