When I wake up the next morning, it feels like my head is a cymbal and some overly enthusiastic drum player has taken all their aggression out on me.
“Arrgggh.” I grimace and roll over in bed, pulling my pillow over my head. Even with my blinds down, the sun is still streaming through my window. I should ask Mom and Dad if we can invest in those blackout shades Tabitha has in her room. She’s supersensitive to light and noise when she’s falling asleep at night. It’s why she’s never been to one of our sleepovers. The first time she tried, Lauren’s snoring kept her up all night.
(To be honest, Lauren’s snoring would keep anyone up all night.)
I don’t usually get headaches. Not like Dad, who complains a few times a month about his migraines. He has to hole up in his bedroom and shut off all the lights, a damp washcloth over his eyes. Even me whispering to him makes him clench his teeth in pain.
Dad once warned me that I could “age into” migraines, but I doubt that’s what this is, even if the idea of a wet washcloth does sound good right about now. No, it’s the nonstop crying I did last night that’s making my head feel like one of those pictures of explosions in Lauren’s favorite comic books.
After Dad retreated to his office and I had to squelch the desire to text Mom for advice on what to do if I see Coach Ortiz again, I could only manage about ten minutes of some random Netflix movie before I started crying.
(There’s only so much of a “heartwarming mother-daughter relationship” storyline you can watch before you feel like the movie industry is directly targeting you.)
After a few minutes, I finally opened my eyes. I was still flopped on my stomach, so all I had was a direct view of my sheets, my favorite ones, light blue with softballs all over them.
“Live softball and dream softball, right?” Mom had said when we bought them, shaking her head in acceptance after I’d rejected the “oh so pretty” pink floral sheets she’d suggested.
(I am not a pink floral kind of girl.)
The memory of Mom made me cry even harder. Which means that this morning, in addition to my headache, my face is probably a splotchy mess.
At least the thought of getting out of the house makes me feel a bit better, even though it does absolutely nothing for my head. And Tylenol will help me there. I roll over and grab my phone from my nightstand, then practically shriek out loud when I see the time.
8:02!
The bus will be here in ten minutes! Why didn’t Mom wake me—
Oh. Duh. The Mom-sized hole that had tunneled its way into our house gets a few inches deeper. This one is a literal Mom-sized hole. The figurative one has been here for awhile now.
Dad had to wake me up yesterday, after I’d pressed snooze on my alarm clock three times, then shut it off entirely. I’m not the best early riser, and both my parents know that. It’s why even though I’m eleven years old, they still wake me up for school. It’s why they tell me that now that I’m older, I need to “take responsibility” and “be more mature,” but they still stomp their way into my bedroom every morning, allowing for just enough time for me to take a quick shower, get dressed, and grab a banana and a Nutri-Grain bar on my way out the door.
“If you wanted a proper breakfast, you’ll get yourself up on time,” Mom always says.
(Said?)
No, definitely says. It’s not like Mom’s dead or anything. She’s just gone.
Temporarily away.
There’s a word for that, those expressions that sound all fancy so you don’t have to say the really awful thing. Euphemism. It sounds like euphonium, an instrument my Aunt Kristen played in high school.
It also sounds like euphoria, a fancy word that means “really, really happy.”
None of those euphemisms give me euphoria. Not at all.
Neither does being super-duper late for school. Anyway, I know Mom’s not here, but why didn’t Dad wake me up?
“Dad?” I shout it from my room, then again when I’m in my bathroom, a toothbrush dangling from my mouth. Good thing I took a shower before bed; I have no time for one today and I don’t want to go to school as a total stinkasaurus.
I’m having a total flashback to last night, when I roamed the house looking for my missing dad. And after I throw on a pair of jeans (my too-tight, too-short, “whoops! everything else is in the laundry” ones) and a t-shirt, that flashback becomes a reality when I find another note on the refrigerator. Dad even pinned it up with the same magnet.
Veronica—
I had another meeting this morning. Have a great day!
Love, Dad
I narrow my eyes at the note, like there’s another line hidden in there somewhere. Like if I put it under the lamp, I’ll discover that Dad wrote something in lemon juice, like I used to do when I was a kid.
Like there’s a logical explanation for all this secrecy.
And “Have a great day?” How can I have a great day when it’s starting out like this? When I’m totally going to be late and my Dad’s transformed into the Amazing Disappearing Man?
Dad never has sales meetings at this time. He can’t be visiting Mom this early, either. What could be going on? I think back to Claudia’s admission yesterday—are my parents going to get separated, too? Did Dad finally get fed up with Mom’s drinking and decide to meet with a lawyer? Or what if he’s at the doctor? What if Dad’s sick in some way?
What’s going on?