Page 2 of Left of Forever

I grab my phone, but before I can call the bread-busting buffoon, it starts to ring. I smile when I see Sam’s contact photo.

“Hey, bub,” I say. I’ll greet him with a pet name until the day he complains.

“’Ey, Mom, where you at?”

I can tell he’s in the middle of chewing something. I can’t think of the last time I saw the kid not eating, and yet he stays as lanky as a beanpole. “At home. What’s up?”

“All right, good,” he says. “I’m on my way.”

My doorbell rings just before he adds, “I told Dad to come over, too.” My stomach dives. “Just wanna show you something—together,” he continues. “Don’t worry. It’s a good thing.” I hear the smile in his voice, so I take a deep breath and do my best to gin up one of my own as I walk back down my narrow hallway and open the front door for Ellis.

I avoid direct eye contact as I let him in, pretending to study something on my phone instead. His presence feels too big in this tiny house. His shoulders alone take up all the room in the entryway.

“Uh, I gotta make a call,” I say, flashing him a tight smile. “Sam’s on his way, though.”

He only nods, and I scuttle back down the hall, shutting myself in my room before I dial to cancel my date.

“He-llo?” Lyle says, and in a way that suggests it’s the wildest thing in the world that his phone actually rings.

“Hey, Lyle. I’m so sorry to do this, but I’m not gonna make our date. Sorry if I wasted your time.” I try to be as concise as possible, at least, because my mama always taught me that politeness is a grace that costs very little.

“I’m at Chili’s” is Lyle’s slurred reply.

“I’m—okay? Well… I’m sorry?” Especially since we were supposed to be meeting at a sushi restaurant.

“I got queso dip.” He says it like an offer.

My head tilts with a considerate frown. “Tempting as that may be, I’m gonna have to pass, still.” And then another thought occurs to me. “Hey, Lyle, are you at the bar?”

“I’m at the Chili’s.”

“Yes, got that. But are you sitting at the bar, at the Chili’s?” I ask patiently.

“Oh.” He pauses to let out an impressive belch. “Yeah. I ran out of chips, but I found a spoon.”

“Right. We’ve all been there, Lyle. But hey, do me a favor? Can you pass the phone to the bartender?”

He slurps. Coughs. Burps once more. “Mmsure,” he says.

“Thank you.”

I hear my front door open again and try to make out the muffled sounds of Sam and Ellis talking before the bartender picks up the phone on the other end. I make sure she knows to put Lyle into an Uber or some other designated ride, then promptly block his number when we hang up. Another one bites the dust.

And yet, I feel lighter. Relieved, like I do every time one of these things meets an abrupt end.

I take a few breaths and head out to my living room.

When I round the corner, Ellis’s eyes find me first, because of course they do. They always have and probably always will. Even if it wasn’t him finding me first, I think I’m helpless when it comes to his gravity, like all the life between us created some fundamental reflex. It’s not until those eyes trace the length of me and his casual expression dips into a hard frown that I remember I’m in date attire. My cheeks heat, and I tug on the hem of myshort, black sundress—suddenly self-conscious, like I’m maybe too old to be wearing it. Becoming a mom too young throws off your perspective on these things, I think. On the one hand, I feel ancient. I have a nearly grown son. On the other hand, I’m only thirty-three, a woman with a great deal of life ahead of me. I lost all sense of “appropriate” fashion when I was nineteen and in the throes of potty training a little boy. I hastily kick off my heels.

“Plans get cut short?” Ellis lightly asks.

“Not at all,” I say, using my polite “in front of the kid” voice just like he has, one octave too high to be natural.

His chin dips in a perfunctory nod, and we shift our focus to Sam. Another familiar step in our choreography.

Sam pulls out the chair across from Ellis, motioning for me to take the open one beside him. I comply, my hands clutching each other beneath the little round table that Ellis made for our fifth anniversary—back when we tried to stick to a traditional gift theme; the wood year. Ellis’s sharp inhale pulls my attention up, his nostrils flaring as he leans away. He once loved this perfume, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that his feelings for that have changed, too. I spot something at the base of his neck in the movement, though. There on the back of it, the tip of something on his skin. A tattoo?! It had to be a shadow or a trick of the light.

Whatever. I can’t afford to go on a mental bender over his potential midlife crisis right now. Or any woman that might’ve inspired it.