together. Every year for as long as I can remember, he always made chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. He’d drop the chocolate chips in after he’d poured the batter to arrange them in the numbers of whatever birthday it was.
Yesterday was sixteen. But no chocolate chips—just a text from Dad:
HAPPY BDAY! Call me when you can. XO
I haven’t talked to him yet. I feel guilty about it. I should at least call him and thank him for the car, but I haven’t done it yet. Every time I think I’m ready to, Mom traipses into the kitchen looking like a zombie, and it makes me angry on the inside. Not burn-down-a-building angry. It makes me just angry enough to put down my phone.
Dad was always the one up and at ’em on weekend mornings. He liked to go to the gym before he went to the dealership. He was usually back making breakfast by the time I woke up on Saturdays and because Mom usually works Fridaynights, it was just him and me eating omelets and talking on Saturday mornings.
When I got his text yesterday morning, I was lying in bed, listening to the silence of Mom sleeping late. My heart started pounding in this weird way, like I was going to be in trouble or something. I poised my thumbs over the screen to tap a message back to him, but I didn’t know what to say, and I realized I was holding my breath.
I took in several long, deep breaths like I do when I find my rhythm running. It helped my heart to stop pounding so hard, and I sent him a little smiley face back:
=)
Maybe it’s a start.
I didn’t have high hopes for my birthday last night, but Mom managed to surprise me. Not only did she take Friday night off, she was dressed and looking nice when I got back from my afternoon run with Vanessa and Geoff. To top it all off she sprang a surprise on me. She’d called the whole gang and invited everyone over for taco night. She had a gigantic devil’s food cake in the oven, and the whole house smelled so good my head got sort of light and loopy. I realized while I was standing in the kitchen with Vanessa and Geoff that I hadn’t had a single bite of anything cakelike since that doughnut Jill’s mom caught me eating on the boat. I made a decision right then and therethat I was going to enjoy my birthday, and just not care about the calories for one day.
Vanessa and Geoff arrived at the same time that Jill and Rob showed up. Jack appeared on the front steps about five minutes later with a fistful of flowers. They were long-stemmed red roses, so bright and beautiful that they took my breath away. Let me stop here and say that I’ve only seen men arrive with flowers in movies. I’ve been trying to remember a time when my dad arrived at the door with flowers for my mom or me and I simply can’t. Typically, when he showed up with a surprise, it was a car of some kind. As I stared at Jack’s blue eyes, twinkling over the tops of the roses, I decided that flowers were better than an SUV any day.
Mom’s tacos are delicious. They always are. There’s something about the way she seasons the meat that knocks them out of the park. Everybody but Jill loaded up a big plateful. Jill took half a spoonful of ground beef and a sprinkling of shredded lettuce. Mom and the boys were back in the living room plugging the old video camera into the television so that my annual birthday humiliation of watching videos of myself as an infant could commence. I’d almost made it across the kitchen to where the great room becomes the living room on the other side of the island when I heard it:
Vanessa (to Jill): Is that really all you’re going to eat?
Jill (quietly): That’s your limit.
Vanessa: What?
Jill: You get one comment about what I’m eating tonight, Vanessa, and that was it.
Vanessa: I just want to make sure that—
Jill: Mind. Your. Own. Business.
I kept walking. Jill can hold her own.
I had a headache and a stomachache this morning when I woke up. I think it was all the sugar and calories. I had three tacos
Yesterday was sixteen. But no chocolate chips—just a text from Dad:
HAPPY BDAY! Call me when you can. XO
I haven’t talked to him yet. I feel guilty about it. I should at least call him and thank him for the car, but I haven’t done it yet. Every time I think I’m ready to, Mom traipses into the kitchen looking like a zombie, and it makes me angry on the inside. Not burn-down-a-building angry. It makes me just angry enough to put down my phone.
Dad was always the one up and at ’em on weekend mornings. He liked to go to the gym before he went to the dealership. He was usually back making breakfast by the time I woke up on Saturdays and because Mom usually works Fridaynights, it was just him and me eating omelets and talking on Saturday mornings.
When I got his text yesterday morning, I was lying in bed, listening to the silence of Mom sleeping late. My heart started pounding in this weird way, like I was going to be in trouble or something. I poised my thumbs over the screen to tap a message back to him, but I didn’t know what to say, and I realized I was holding my breath.
I took in several long, deep breaths like I do when I find my rhythm running. It helped my heart to stop pounding so hard, and I sent him a little smiley face back:
=)
Maybe it’s a start.
I didn’t have high hopes for my birthday last night, but Mom managed to surprise me. Not only did she take Friday night off, she was dressed and looking nice when I got back from my afternoon run with Vanessa and Geoff. To top it all off she sprang a surprise on me. She’d called the whole gang and invited everyone over for taco night. She had a gigantic devil’s food cake in the oven, and the whole house smelled so good my head got sort of light and loopy. I realized while I was standing in the kitchen with Vanessa and Geoff that I hadn’t had a single bite of anything cakelike since that doughnut Jill’s mom caught me eating on the boat. I made a decision right then and therethat I was going to enjoy my birthday, and just not care about the calories for one day.
Vanessa and Geoff arrived at the same time that Jill and Rob showed up. Jack appeared on the front steps about five minutes later with a fistful of flowers. They were long-stemmed red roses, so bright and beautiful that they took my breath away. Let me stop here and say that I’ve only seen men arrive with flowers in movies. I’ve been trying to remember a time when my dad arrived at the door with flowers for my mom or me and I simply can’t. Typically, when he showed up with a surprise, it was a car of some kind. As I stared at Jack’s blue eyes, twinkling over the tops of the roses, I decided that flowers were better than an SUV any day.
Mom’s tacos are delicious. They always are. There’s something about the way she seasons the meat that knocks them out of the park. Everybody but Jill loaded up a big plateful. Jill took half a spoonful of ground beef and a sprinkling of shredded lettuce. Mom and the boys were back in the living room plugging the old video camera into the television so that my annual birthday humiliation of watching videos of myself as an infant could commence. I’d almost made it across the kitchen to where the great room becomes the living room on the other side of the island when I heard it:
Vanessa (to Jill): Is that really all you’re going to eat?
Jill (quietly): That’s your limit.
Vanessa: What?
Jill: You get one comment about what I’m eating tonight, Vanessa, and that was it.
Vanessa: I just want to make sure that—
Jill: Mind. Your. Own. Business.
I kept walking. Jill can hold her own.
I had a headache and a stomachache this morning when I woke up. I think it was all the sugar and calories. I had three tacos
Similar Books
