A Step Back

Lanie

“I don’t know what he expects me to do at that lodge,” Mom continued on, her voice blaring from the speakers of my desk phone. “He’s only going there because that man, what’s his name, is going there too. The one whose company your father wants to buy. He’s hoping to do some business over Christmas vacation.”

“Have you told him this?” I sifted through some papers on my desk, looking for the parent survey forms the school collected the day before.

Mom was silent. I could picture her well, probably pursing her lips as she pressed the phone to her face and looked out at the bird feeder in the backyard. It was her greatest hobby, that bird feeder. Somehow, she recognized a lot of the birds that came to it. If a regular visitor stopped coming by, she’d worry they’d been eaten by a cat or flown into a window.

“No,” Mom finally said. “You know how your father is.”

“Yeah.”

“He told me he met with Andrew.”

Segue much, Mom?

“Uh-huh,” I carefully answered, “and things are good between them