Page 79 of This Time Around
“Paige,” he said in his most stern voice. “What are you doing with my phone?”
“Well mine’s not working right now, so?—”
“I know yours isn’t working right now,” he said through gritted teeth. “And do you think that might have something to do with the fact that you deliberately ignored me the two thousand times I told you not to take your phone into the bathroom?”
His daughter’s bottom lip quivered a little, and Jack resisted the urge to back down. Some lessons she had to learn the hard way.
“Well, yeah, but?—”
“No buts,” he said. “Your phone is a privilege, and you lost that privilege when you splashed water on it.”
“But I didn’t think a few drops of water would ruin it like that.”
“We’ll know in a few hours if it’s ruined. You did the right thing putting it in rice like I showed you. But you did the wrong thing by taking it in there in the first place, and you’re also doing the wrong thing by using my phone right now without asking.”
Her eyes went a little bit watery, but she stuck out her jaw anyway. “But I had to text Allie,” she said. “We were making plans to go bra shopping and I had to tell her that I messed up and I couldn’t text her like I said I could.”
An uneasy feeling tickled the center of Jack’s gut. He held out his hand. “Give me the phone, please.”
Paige got up and walked over, setting it in his palm. “I’m sorry, Daddy.”
“We all make mistakes,” he said, scrolling back through his daughter’s texts to see that very word jumping out at him.
Made a mistake.
Plz don’t text me, K?
Oh, shit. He scrolled down, his gut hitting rock bottom as he read Allie’s reply:
Total mistake, for sure! Was thinking the same. Won’t text you again.
Jack felt nauseated. He stared at the words, trying to make sense of them.
“What’s wrong, Daddy?”
He looked down at his daughter to see her staring up at him with a concerned look on her face.
“Honey,” he said slowly. “When you use someone else’s phone to send a text message, you need to tell them it’s you and not the person whose phone you’re borrowing.”
“But Allie knew it was me,” Paige protested. “She even seemed like she knew about how I messed up and got water on the phone.”
“It does seem like that, doesn’t it?”
Total mistake, for sure!
Jesus Christ. Did she really feel that way, or was she just responding to what she thought he’d said? He was too old for this sort of guessing game.
He glanced again at his daughter’s worried face. He ordered himself not to panic, to stay focused on this teaching moment with his kid. The rest could wait for later.
“Paige,” he said slowly. “What are some of the lessons you’ve learned here this morning?”
His daughter scuffed her turquoise Converse sneaker on the carpet and scrunched up her forehead. “Not to take my phone in the bathroom,” she mumbled. “And not to use your phone without asking.”
“And?”
“And not to text people without telling who I am.”
“Right. Now come here.”
