Page 79 of Holiday Star
Screw Dr. Benson and his lack of forward thinking. It’s a good plan. I feel it in my bones.
Now I need to find someone who agrees with me.
50
How’s the weather in California?” I ask Teddy, straining to hear his answer through the tiny speaker in my cell phone.
We’re back to mostly superficial conversations. It hurts my heart, but after seeing how Marjorie smothered Caleb and how that backfired, I’m retreating a step. Let Teddy have his space and figure out some things on his own. He knows I’m here to help whenever he wants me.
Besides, I’m sure Mom is nagging him enough for the both of us.
My phone sits propped up on the kitchen counter. I need my hands free to work. Tonight’s canvas is filled with the face of one of my patients, an elderly lady with fluffy white hair that floats around her head like a snowy cloud. I had asked her permission to sketch and then paint her. Once she agreed, I’d used my lunch break to run up to her room and do a rough drawing.
All day, I’ve been looking forward to working on this. Painting, along with my near weekly sessions with the grief counselor and art therapist, has been a balm to my soul. I’m starting to feel more like my old self. Not just the person I was before Caleb left, but the person I was before my father died. The person who saw a multitude of possibilities when she looked in the mirror.
“The usual. Cold in the morning and night. Warm in the middle of the day. Have to dress in layers.” Teddy sighs. “I’m not complaining, though. It’s a lot better than the snow at the University of Michigan.”
He had followed up on his plan and dropped out of college after Christmas. He’s taken over my old position as house sitter at Mom and Seth’s place. Now he’s the one who gets to listen to the distant sound of hammers and wood saws. At my urging, he’s started enrollment at the local community college and picked up some bartending work for money.
He’s doing okay, but not great. A little lost, lacking purpose.
I’ve added him to my list of worries. It goes something like this. Teddy. Caleb. The slowly shrinking, but not yet gone, hole in my heart.
“How’re things going with you and Mom?” he asks.
“Better. At least we’re talking, but she gave me a big lecture about being more honest in the future.”
“No offense, Sissy, but you kind of deserve that. You did lie to her.”
“I realize that, and I feel guilty about it. I figure I’ll be making it up to Mom for, oh, I don’t know…the next forty or fifty years of my life.”
Teddy’s laugh is good to hear. It hits me how rarely I had heard it while he was in Michigan.
“At least we’ll get to watch you grovel to Mom next summer. I can’t wait to go to Japan,” Teddy says, mentioning the trip my entire family has planned to visit Mom and Seth.
“Liv told me the twins want to see every Pokémon store there. They won’t stop talking about it.” I smile, thinking about those two girls tearing through all the toy and card shops in Tokyo. “I can’t wait for Japan, either.”
“What about Caleb? Any news?”
Now it’s my turn to sigh. “None.”
Thanks to Wayne, everyone has figured out that Caleb’s in rehab. They’ve eaten it up, casting him as a fallen star. Another cautionary tale of a child celebrity gone off the rails.
“I shouldn’t care, anyway. It’s not like I’ll ever see him again.”
“Unless he turns up at some family event,” Teddy counters.
Ugh. I hadn’t thought of that. I would hope that Caleb at least had enough respect for me to spare me from that horror. I’m still trying to forget him.
Then why are you leaving messages on his phone?a tiny voice that sounds suspiciously like mine asks in the back of my head.
Why am I? Since Caleb’s been in rehab, I’ve developed a nasty habit of calling his phone every night. At first it was just to hear his voice on the voicemail greeting. “Hey, it’s Caleb. Drop a message and I’ll hit you back.”Beep.I would leave a quick generic voicemail like, “Hi. Hope you’re doing okay,” or “Thinking of you.”
But like every junkie, I’ve increased my dose. Now my messages are longer. I tell him about my day at the hospital. Talk about funny things that Alvina said or that Wayne still won’t leave me alone.
Pathetic, I know.
Since he never picks up, it feels as if it’s a safe space. Like I’m throwing my words into a void, letting them get whisked away into the ether. Gone to wherever cell phone signals go. It’s nice to unburden my soul that way.
