Sunday night. Mom night. I was sprawled out on the living room rug working on my math homework. Jenna was at the dinner table. Her head was buried deep in a big, thick biology textbook. If it were any other night, she would have been up in her room, by herself or out of the house completely. Dad was in the kitchen, close to the phone, unloading the dishwasher.
The phone rang. My head shot up. Jenna closed her book and darted into the kitchen. My dad picked up the phone after only one ring. “Hello?” The tone of his voice raised about five octaves.
I followed Jenna into the kitchen. We surrounded Dad like five-year-olds waiting for ice cream. Dad’s mouth quickly shrank. He turned to us and shook his head. It wasn’t Mom. He covered the receiver with his hand and whispered, “Another telemarketer.” Jenna ran her hands through her hair, pulled out one of those elastic binders, and put it in a ponytail. Then she slouched back into the dining room and opened up her biology book.
Dad came into the dining room and sat next to Jenna. “What are you studying?” he asked.
Jenna showed him the front cover of her biology book, never making eye contact with him. “Do you have a test or something? Want some help studying?”
“No, that’s all right. Mom’s more of the science person anyway, isn’t she?”
“Yeah, I guess she is,” he said quietly. “Well, just let me know if you need any help.”
Jenna didn’t respond. Dad got up from the table and went back into the kitchen.
I was sick of math, so I flipped on the TV and fell onto the couch. Mom would call soon, so I didn’t want to preoccupy myself with something as silly as schoolwork. Plus, one of the thirty daily episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond was on. I felt bad for Ray’s brother, Robert. He always felt like an outsider. His brother, Raymond, got all the attention. He seemed to be the favorite. Poor Robert. I wondered if that’s how Dad felt after talking to Jenna.
The episode ended, which meant it was 8:00. No call from Mom. She usually would have called by then. I got up from the couch and walked through the dining room on my way to the kitchen. Jenna was still sitting at the table, but her book was closed and her head was in her hands, hiding her eyes. I kept walking. Dad was still in the kitchen, leaning against the countertop. He was staring at the floor. He perked up when I snuck in. “Oh, hey, buddy.”
“No Mom yet, huh?”
“Not yet, but she’ll call soon.” He was unconvincing.
I heard the old stairs creaking. Jenna was going up to her room.
“Okay. I’m gonna go upstairs for a while. Just let me know when she calls,” I told him.
“Okay, Timmy.”
Ten o’clock. No call yet. I had been lying on my bed for almost two hours staring at the ceiling. I got up and walked across the hall to my dad’s office. I saw the back of his head through the crack in the door. He was sitting at his desk. Maybe he got an email from Mom. I was about to go check on him when he sprung up from his chair and stormed out of the office. He headed down the hallway, so I yelled, “Dad, did you hear anything?”
He turned around surprised. “Uh, no. Not yet. Don’t worry though, buddy. Maybe she just got caught up with something. We’ll hear from her soon, I’m sure.” After he went downstairs, I scooted into his office and sat down at the computer. Mom and Dad wouldn’t buy me my own computer because they didn’t want me to sit in my room all day and stare helplessly into the screen, which according to them would probably cause permanent eye damage. So when I want to surf the Internet or check my email, I had to use my dad’s computer.
I opened up my email. I had three new messages. Two of them were SPAM, so I deleted them. There was one from Mom though. I got excited and almost yelled to Jenna and Dad, but then I looked at the date. I hadn’t checked my email for a couple of days. This one was sent on Friday. A lot could have happened in two days.
Along with her weekly Sunday night phone call, she emailed us once a week. The emails were nice, but not the same as hearing her voice. Plus, I always felt her emails were a bit generic. She told us as soon as she got there that there were strict rules about what she could say in her emails. Some kind of security issue I thought. I suppose that made sense, but I didn’t get a clear picture of what things were like over there from her messages. Just, “Hey, how are you doing?” kinds of things. I suppose I shouldn’t complain too much about it though. Email had allowed us to stay in contact—she couldn’t call us every night.
Mom would rarely send universal messages to our whole family. Each of us got our own.
Hi, Tim. How are you doing? Things haven‘t changed around here a whole lot. It’s very hot. It feels like I’ve walked into a hairdryer. They make us wear these stuffy uniforms all the time. I really miss the color green. Everything here is brown. I’m getting sick of looking at brown. I hope everything is going okay. I’ll talk to you soon. Love, Mom
I could hear Mom’s voice as I read. It didn’t make me any happier. In fact, it made me even more nervous. She said things hadn’t changed, but I was sure something had since she wrote that email.
I got up slowly from the desk. As I walked into the hallway, I heard crying behind Jenna’s door. I crept over to her door, stood directly in front of it, and stared. After a few seconds, I raised my fist to knock, paused, and then lowered it. I backed away and slunk to my room.
The clock said 10:30. It was 7:30 the next morning in Baghdad—time for Mom to start her day. I hoped Dad was right. I hoped she had something come up she needed to take care of. I hoped it wasn’t something else.
I got ready for bed and lay down, staring at the ceiling again. There was a soft breeze blowing the branches of the tree outside my window. It should have been peaceful. It should have been soothing. But peace had abandoned our home that night.