Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 82883 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82883 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
“I’m good, but is everything okay with you?” she asks. It sounds like she’s reading the words off a prompter.
I nod, even though it’s a lie. “Yeah. Just, you know—getting settled.”
Jeannine nods and perches on the edge of the desk, careful not to snag her stockings on the fake crystal knobs. Her skirt is shorter than appropriate for a woman her age, but she’s still trim and beautiful. “You look tired,” she says. “Are you not sleeping at the apartment?”
“Too noisy. Stella’s guy friend keeps coming over and yelling at Fortnite.”
Jeannine rolls her eyes, a neat gesture of solidarity. “Men,” she sighs, as if this is the opening to some larger grievance.
I want to ask about Kent, to find out what kind of illness requires a twenty-one-year-old babysitter, and not a professional nurse. I want to ask why she called me home instead of just hiring someone. But Jeannine is already moving on, already opening her purse and pretending to dig for something important. The ticket in the front pocket flutters, a little white flag.
“You going somewhere?” I ask.
My mom freezes, then lifts the ticket with a flourish. “California. San Jose, actually.” The word lands with an anticlimactic plop.
I try to find context for this. “But why? What’s in San Jose? Isn’t that where all the tech bros live?”
She glances at me, then back at the window, and the left corner of her mouth tugs upward. “I’m taking a contract. Traveling nurse, you know. It’s only for a month, maybe two. I’ll be back before summer’s here.”
The room spins a little, not because she’s leaving but because I never imagined her as someone who went anywhere without a man. “What about Kent? What about us?” I say, my voice rising. “I thought we had to take care of a sick man.”
She shrugs, and the gesture is so foreign on her body that it makes her look older, almost vulnerable. “Kent will be fine. He barely notices if I’m here or not.” A beat, then: “Besides, that’s why you’re here, right? To keep an eye on things.”
I stare at her, befuddled.
“But I thought we were going to take care of him together. Like he has a serious illness, and you’d be the first line of defense, seeing that you’re a registered nurse. I’m just here as back-up.”
She glances at her phone, scrolling through a cluster of notifications, then looks up with an air of decision. “Mary Kate, I’m going to be honest with you. Kent and I are separating.” She says it with the same tone she uses for calling the pharmacy, or telling me to wear sunscreen.
For a second, all I hear is the hum of the furnace and the faint clatter of her nails on the phone case.
I blink. “What?”
She puts the phone down, hands flat on her knees. “He’s going to file the paperwork this week. We’ve already talked to the lawyer. It’s amicable. Nobody’s mad.”
My mind scrolls through the last few years like a flip book: dinners in expensive restaurants, Christmas in Aspen, the time Kent bought Jeannine a convertible because he said her old one “lacked character.” I never saw a single fight, not even a hint of friction, but then again, my mom can wear a crisis like a new coat.
I pick at the edge of the quilt. “Is this because he’s sick?”
Her expression darkens a fraction. “No, I’m not leaving a man because he’s ill and I’m ditching him when he’s down. It’s because he’s himself.” She lets out a brittle laugh. “Kent’s been difficult. You know how he gets. The moods. The silence.” She doesn’t look at me when she says this, but I feel the words land anyway.
“He’s your husband,” I say. It’s a stupid, useless thing to say, but I can’t think of anything better.
“Was,” she corrects, voice soft but final.
I want to ask what “difficult” means, if there’s a specific event or just the slow erosion of years. But Jeannine’s already moved on. For a moment, she just breathes, her fingers picking at an imaginary thread on her skirt. Then she gets up and sits next to me on the bed. She puts a hand on my knee, gentle but firm.
“I know this is sudden,” she says. “But it’s what needs to happen. For all of us.”
I look at the floor. “You could have told me before I drove out here.”
She smiles, a cracked version of the old one. “If I’d told you, you might not have come. Or you would have spent the whole drive making yourself sick.”
“Probably both,” I say.
She squeezes my knee, then releases. “Kent is fine, honey. I mean he’s sick, but he’s not dying, that was a bit of an overstatement. He just—” She lets out a breath, searching for words. “He just needs someone in the house. Someone he trusts. He’s never liked strangers, you know that.”