Page 86 of Lies and Lullabies
But I never asked. And clearly I was an idiot for making assumptions.
We didn’t know each other very well. That seemed obvious now.
God, I was such an idiot.
I set down my phone and shut off my lamp. I curled up in my bed, staring into the darkness. At any other point in my life, I would probably have burst into tears. But instead, I only felt numb. I shouldn’t even be thinking about Jonas right now. Adam’s illness was the important thing. We just had to get through his surgery.
I closed my eyes and willed myself to fall asleep.
* * *
The next morningwas simply too busy for wallowing in my own misery. Vivi and I had to take care of the grocery shopping.
“When can I go to Ada’s house?” she asked, bored by the long line at the checkout.
“Soon, sweetie. Right around lunchtime.” I moved the cart forward. “Listen, Viv? Adam has to go to a doctor’s office today, and they’re going to fix a little thing in his tummy.” This wasn’t a lie, exactly. As it happened, the surgeon was going to go through an incision in Adam’s pelvis. He wouldn’t be lifting his niece onto his lap anytime soon.
“Why?” Vivi asked.
Why, indeed. “There’s a bump there that they want to take out. And he has to stay overnight. But tomorrow he’ll come back home, okay?”
“Okay.”
“He’ll have to sit around for a couple of days and read a lot of magazines.”
“And watch videos on his phone?” Vivi asked hopefully.
“We’ll see.” In my pocket, my own phone vibrated. I snuck a peek at the screen, just in case it was Adam calling.
No dice.Missed calls: 3 from Jonas.
“It’s daddy!” Vivi yelled.
“What?” I asked. Could Vivi suddenlyread?
She clapped her hands. “The song, Mommy.”
I went still. Sure enough, “Sweetness” was playing over the store’s sound system. Good grief. Was there no way to escape that man? I heaved a five-pound box of rice onto the conveyor belt with a little more force than necessary.
It used to be easier to hear Jonas’s songs on the radio, back when he was just a vivid memory. Now these songs were like the soundtrack to my own stupidity.
You’ll always be my sweetness.
Right. And to think I’d believed that he meant it. But pop songs were meant to seduce the masses. And clearly Jonas took that seduction seriously.
I put grapes and onions, potatoes, chicken, ground turkey, cheese and crackers on the conveyor belt. And a six-pack of Adam’s favorite Mexican soda. Real love wasn’t set to a four-four drum beat in a recording studio. Real love was accomplishedthisway—by caring for the people who needed you.
I would try not to forget it.
Twenty-Two
Jonas
Three of us sat under a leaden sky on Ethan’s hotel room balcony.
“I’ve always liked Nashville,” Nixon said, his feet up on the railing. “But I liked it better when I didn’t feel like road kill.”
I did not reply. My opinion about why Nixon felt half alive would not be welcome. And I had no opinion on Nashville, and very little to say about anything at all today. Kira had not called or answered a text in three days, and I was about to lose my mind.
