The rest of practice was a complete waste. I played terribly. Ground balls were rolling under my legs and over my glove. I couldn’t concentrate. I kept thinking about the whole Nicole situation. I kept thinking about my mom.
When I got home from practice I walked into the kitchen and I could hear my dad talking upstairs. I didn’t hear any other voices so I assumed he was on the phone.
“I want you to come home for dinner tonight, Jenna,” he said in a firm tone. “You need to spend a little time with your family.” Jenna must have gone over to Josh’s again. I could imagine exactly what Jenna was saying and how she was saying it on the other end of the line. She was arguing with my dad about coming home. That happened a lot.
“I’m gonna stay at Josh’s and eat,” she would say in a snotty tone. It wouldn’t matter what my dad would say. She seemed to be in control. He could ground her all he wanted, but the fact was that he was gone most of the day and he couldn’t control her. I felt bad for my dad sometimes. He was trying really hard, but Jenna seemed to be taking out her anger on him and it wasn’t his fault. It was nobody’s fault really. It was just the way it was. It sucked.
I went into the living room and plopped myself down on the couch. I had a bunch of homework to do, but I needed to relax a little before I got to it. I flipped on the TV, hoping to find a rerun of Cheers or Growing Pains or something. Instead I kept coming across twenty-four-hour news stations.
As I passed by CNN I saw a headline on the screen that read, “Roadside bomb kills six in Baghdad.” I stopped flipping the channels and set the remote control down carefully on the coffee table. As I watched the news reporter talk about the details of the bombing all I could think about was whether one of those “killed” was my mom. I hadn’t seen anything on the Internet. I hadn’t seen anything in the papers. And I hoped I wouldn’t see anything about her on the news.
I almost switched the channel, nervous to hear what the reporter had to say, but I didn’t. Instead, I inched up on the couch so that I could see the screen better with all those stupid scrolling headlines. The reporter was standing next to a highway with tanks, Hummers, and soldiers all around. I used to hate watching that stuff because I never knew who to believe. My mom would never talk about the danger. She never mentioned bombings or tanks even. But there they were. Right there on the TV screen. Who was I supposed to believe? The strange reporter with the British accent yelling over the sound of helicopters or my own mother?
I heard my dad coming down the stairs, so I quickly turned the channel to something happier— The Family Feud.
“Hey buddy,” he said. He sounded a little down. “Watching the Feud, huh?”
“Yep. Jenna comin’ home?” I knew the answer, but I asked anyway.
“I’m not sure. She’s working on a project over at Josh’s. I’m not sure when she’s coming home.”
“Oh,” I said. I paused for a minute, not really wanting to ask the question. “Any word from Mom?”
“Afraid not,” he said, staring at the TV. “I’ve made a couple of phone calls, but I can’t seem to get anywhere with it. No one seems to know anything. It’s pretty frustrating, but I’m sure everything’s fine. If something had happened, I’m sure someone would have let us know. I bet we’ll hear from her real soon.” As he spoke, he continued to gaze at the TV. He never looked at me.
I nodded. I wanted to believe him. Changing the subject, I asked, “What are we going to do for dinner?”
“Well, I thought I could grill some steaks. How does that sound? And you could see if Seth wanted to come over for dinner if you want.” I grinned ear to ear after hearing about the steaks. I loved steak. But the smile quickly turned upside down when Seth was mentioned. “You don’t want Seth to come over?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” I did know. I absolutely did not want Seth to come over. All he would talk about was the whole Nicole situation and I just didn’t feel like dealing with that.
“Something going on with you guys?” He was prying like Mom used to.
“No. Not really.” I lied. I couldn’t remember the last time I had lied to my dad.
“All right,” he said waiting for more information that I didn’t want to give him. “I’ll throw a couple of those steaks on the grill and we’ll eat in a little while. Okay?”
“Sounds good, Dad.” As he walked out the back door to the patio, I turned the TV back to CNN and looked for my mom.