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She glances at the screen as she hands it to me. “It’s your dad.”
“Oh.” My stomach sinks, and I’m hitting the answer button with my thumb when it occurs to me that the response has become ingrained.
When my dad calls, it’s because he wants to talk about the case, and talking about the case makes me queasy.
I drive to Des Moines and my pulse picks up on the interstate.
I walk past my attorney’s receptionist and start to sweat.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Hi,” he says. “I wanted to warn you, you’re going to get a call in the next day or two from a staffer at State Senator Carlisle’s office. They’re interested—”
“You guys want to get Chinese for dinner?” West has wandered in from the kitchen.
“I thought you were making Sloppy Joe’s,” Frankie says.
“We’re out of ketchup.”
“I hate Chinese.”
“You like those crispy things. Crab rangoon.”
“Nuh-uh.”
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“You liked them last week.”
My dad’s still talking. “—bill might come out of it, and she thought—”
“Well, what do you want?” West asks.
“I want Sloppy Joe’s.”
“I already said we don’t have ketchup.”
“So go get some.”
“By the time I got back from the store, it’d be—”
“Sorry, can you hang on a second?” I slide out from under Frankie’s head and take my call into the bedroom.
As I pass by West, he finally notices the phone in my hand and mouths the word Sorry. I shake my head to indicate it’s no big deal. As I step into his bedroom, I can hear him and Frankie resume their bickering.
“—say she was talking on the phone?”
“I thought you saw.”
“Obviously I didn’t. Who’s she talking to?”
“Her dad.”
“Jesus, Franks, and you didn’t think maybe we should—”
The closing door cuts off the sound of their voices. I sit on the edge of the mattress.
“Okay,” I say. “Repeat that last thing you were telling me?”
