Worrier
“Why you ignoring me, chica? You call me and say you need to talk but then do not pick up your phone when I try to call back. You are not nice. I worry about you all day.”
Robyn rested her head against her palm and stared at the reason she was tardy in returning Isabel’s calls. “I’ve had Caemon today because he’s too much of a handful for his grandparents. They could only handle Eliza while Kristine and Gloria went to Penelope’s service.”
“Lo siento. That’s terrible news.”
“So that’s why I called you.” Robyn reached across the table and married the peanut butter side of the bread to the jam side. Caemon blinked at her before dismantling it again, so he could run his thumb through the peanut butter and lick it. Too exhausted to fight him, she gave up and studied his method instead.
“Because you can’t handle one three-year-old on your own?”
“Have a little faith…”
“Yakkum?” Caemon said.
“Yakkum?” Robyn repeated.
“Napkin,” Isabel easily translated. “You sure…”
“I’ve got this,” Robyn said, handing Caemon a cloth napkin.
He furrowed his brow. “Wet.”
Robyn sighed heavily and got up to wet the napkin. “Okay, maybe this is harder than I thought it would be.”
Her friend laughed. “Do they want to know if you will buy the horse?”
“No. I haven’t heard from them. I’m betting the horse isn’t something they want to think about right now.”
“Then I am confused.”
Robyn didn’t know where to start. Kristine had also tried Grace who was unexpectedly out of town. Robyn was surprised that Kristine didn’t know about Grace’s brother. If Grace was out of town, that meant she had decided to give her brother a chance. Robyn wondered if she had come to that conclusion because of their conversation about forgiveness, and she was surprised that Grace had confided in her and not Kristine. That, Robyn realized, was why she’d called Isabel. Isabel would know how to translate Grace’s actions.
“Someone kissed me,” Robyn stammered.
“A female someone? Not this little boy, no?” Isabel replied.
“A very attractive, successful female someone.”
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“How am I just now hearing about this?”
“I’d just told her that I didn’t want to date another white knuckler, and she planted a kiss on me.” Isabel had coined the term to capture Barbara’s desire to control every single thing in her life.
“For this she kisses you?”
Robyn helped Caemon wipe peanut butter from his hands before offering him a banana. “She wanted me to know what I was missing.”
“And is it something?”
Remembering the kiss sent a surge of electricity through her body again. “I’d forgotten what it was like to feel like that.”
“What does the horse girl have to do with this?”
“Hang on,” Robyn said, wanting to tell her about how Grace had trusted her. She steered Caemon to the living room and offered him the coloring book and crayons Kristine had packed.
“Plea you draw wi’ me?”
“In a minute, kiddo.” She returned to the kitchen to clean up lunch and attempt to explain why she’d called Isabel. She ran through the truce-like birthday dinner at Kristine’s a week after the kiss and how Grace’s backing off since then had made her feel unbalanced.
“You cannot need me to explain this to you,” Isabel laughed.
Caemon returned to the kitchen hands pinching his parts with a panicked look on his face. “Hang on,” she said to Isabel. “You need to go potty?” she asked Caemon.
Caemon nodded, so Robyn showed him where the bathroom was, stepping outside to give him privacy. “Obviously, I do need you to explain,” Robyn sulked.
“You took her bait. Now all she has to do is reel you in. One kiss. That is impressive!”
“I’m done!” Caemon sang from the room. Robyn waited, but he didn’t emerge.
She listened to Isabel go on about the kiss but had to interrupt her. “Caemon just keeps saying he’s done going potty. Am I supposed to do something?”
“You left him alone in there?”
“He seemed like he knew what he was doing.” She peeked in and saw him perched on the edge of the potty. “He’s just sitting there.”
“Give him a wipe.”
“Three-year-olds don’t wipe themselves?”
Isabel’s laughter prompted her to go in and assess on her own. She pulled a few pieces of toilet paper in preparation and was surprised when Caemon flung himself forward to hang onto her legs. Trying to maintain her posture, she dropped the phone into the garbage. “I dropped you, Isabel. Hold on a sec.” Wiping out of the way, she and Caemon washed hands, and she directed him back to the living room.
“Stop laughing,” she said, retrieving her phone.
“I wish I was there to witness all of this myself,” Isabel responded.
“Then you’d be the one doing all of this stuff. It comes naturally to you. What were we talking about?”
“About how the hot lady is reeling you in,” Isabel reminded her.
“This isn’t about romance,” Robyn insisted.
“Oh?”
“She stopped hitting on me, and now she trusts me with these details of her life.”
“Details?”
“Family stuff she’s dealing with. I want to know what that is.”
“It is called trust. If she trusts you to talk about this pain, then it follows that she trusts you with her heart.”
“She barely knows me.”
“Since when has that stopped anyone from falling in love?”
To give her hands something to do Robyn went ahead and dried the dishes with a dishtowel and put them in the rough open-faced cupboard.
“It’s too quiet there. Where is your little friend?”
“Oh, shit.” The curse left her lips when she realized how distracted she’d become. She jogged across the kitchen through the hall to the living room which she found empty. “Caemon!”
“You lost him, no?”
“He was coloring.”
“Can he open the front door?”
Robyn flung open the door, ran out to the drive and looked up and down the street. No sight of Caemon. She ran her free hand through her hair, tugging it with worry. “Nothing.”
“I bet a hundred dollars he is in your loft.”
Immediately, Robyn pictured the steep set of stairs in her room that led to the loft. The steps had no railing, and there was just the bed and a gaping hole back to the floor eight feet below. Taking the steps two at a time, she rushed upstairs calling his name. Sure enough, when she ran into her room, she looked up to the loft and found worried blue eyes staring back at her. “Caemon! You scared me.”
“You angy?”
Robyn thanked Isabel for her help and tucked her phone in her pocket. “Not angry. I just need you to answer when I call you. Come on down.”
Instead of complying, his eyes left hers guiltily.
“What do you have up there?” She climbed up and turned to sit with her feet resting on the top step. Caemon sat on her mattress, her collection of agate rocks lined up carefully on her blue bedspread.
His tiny hand reached out to straighten a few that had been knocked out of line by his crawling to the opening. He began to pick up the rocks, but Robyn reached out and stilled his hand. “It’s okay if you play with the rocks. I was just worried about you. I wouldn’t want you to fall down the stairs.”
“Baby Eliza can’t climb the stairs.”
“No, she can’t. She’s not a big kid like you are.”
“She’s not allowed of choking hazards.”
Robyn laughed in surprise. “Your moms told you that?”
He nodded solemnly.
“Are you going to put the rocks in your mouth?”
“No! Them is not for eating.”
“Then we’re okay. Let’s take them downstairs. I’ll tell you about why they’re so special.”
He scooped up the rocks, and let her lift him down from the loft space. She shut the door and followed his careful progress on the stairs, chastising herself for letting him out of her sight, relieved by the easy resolution.
* * *
When she picked up Caemon, Kristine shrugged off Robyn’s apology for losing him briefly, assuring her that he had a knack for slipping off quietly. Caemon had enjoyed the agates so much that he’d wanted to take one with him. Robyn would have been happy to have him keep one, but Kristine gently reminded him of his baby sister and pointed out that he could come back to play with the rocks at Robyn’s house another time.
After they drove away, Robyn sat on the porch as the fog rolled in off the bay, thinking about the boundaries that kids naturally tested. At what point did Grace’s brother step over the line of what his parents could cope with? Robyn wondered how Grace had come to peace with the idea of taking Tyler in and whether she’d be able to establish the boundaries that he needed.
She wanted to help Grace but could see how little she knew about parenting a three-year-old, let alone a troubled adult. Strangely, it was not the spontaneous kiss that made Robyn realize that Grace had snuck past her own boundaries. Fretting about whether Grace would be able to deal with her brother living in Arcata made Robyn want to wrap Grace in her arms. Suddenly she found herself worried that she had blown an unrecognized opportunity when Grace had kissed her on Wedding Rock.
She could hear Isabel’s I told you so without even reaching for her phone.