Page 101 of If the World Was Ending

“What’s up?” he said, trying to get her to her point as he put the call on speaker and dropped the thing on the rusting metal table in front of him.

“It’s Christmas soon.”

“I heard.”

“Wanted to check in and see if you’re coming home.”

He blinked and tipped his head back to look at the pale blue sky. A puffy cloud hung to the left. It looked like a loon or a goose. The Canadian kind. That made his brain snag on Hunter again, and the reason he was miserable. Hunter was with Hannah today shooting that damn video of hers.

“Mom, I haven’t been home for Christmas in almost a decade.”

“Seven years is not a decade.” Her voice went flat for the first time in… maybe Colby’s entire life? “So is that a no?”

“No. I am not going to your house for Christmas,” Colby replied and reached for what was left of his smoldering joint. “Where would I even stay? I don’t have a room there. And in case you don’t know or forgot, I don’t live in a van anymore. It was totaled, and I’m a full-time working musician with songs on the radio and an album people buy and a world tour being arranged as we speak.”

There was a pause so long that Colby’s mind wandered. Wandered to all the things he wanted her to respond with. I know about your music and tell everyone you’re my son. I love your music and always knew you’d make it. I’m so proud of you. Instead, it was quiet for so long he leaned over and stared at the screen to make sure the call hadn’t dropped. But then Bonnie Keaton said, “Well, nobody goes to concerts at Christmas, do they? I’ve never heard of such a thing, so you could technically drive down for the day? You own some kind of vehicle, right? You must be making good money now.”

She had a solution to everything. Is that why she sounded so bright and cheery all the time? Because she had all the fucking answers. “Colby baby, Atlas is coming, and he’s got something to tell all of us, and I know it’s going to be big news, so it would be great if we could all celebrate together. I want to take daily pictures and just… commemorate this moment. There won’t be many left.”

There won’t be many left? Is she high? No. But perhaps Colby’s joint was confusing him. “Why won’t there be many left?”

“Because things change. Always. And I mean…” Bonnie’s voice started to lose that lilt again. “I just don’t want to take any moment I can gather us all together for granted. And he has news, Colby. He and Gina have had a rough go lately. He was on the IR list for half the season and had to have shoulder surgery. Did you know?”

“No, I didn’t,” Colby replied. “Is he quitting baseball? Is that the big news?”

“No. No. He acted like it was good news.”

“Is he finally going to tell Dad he was watching gay porn, not me?”

His brain had only thought about saying it, like a dare, but his mouth took that dare. And now the silence was back, but it had an energy to it that crackled like heat lightning. He dropped the end of the joint back on the ashtray. He licked his lips, but his tongue was dry.

“That’s in the past,” Bonnie said before Colby could say anything. “It was a horrible day and your dad… it was horrible. But don’t bring it up again and make it worse with lies, Colby.”

“Lies? Mom, I’m queer. And I may not be your only queer kid, and I’m not the one who thinks that’s unacceptable. I’m not lying about anything. Atlas is lying about everything,” Colby replied, his voice shaking.

“Colby, I’m asking you to come home for Christmas. For an hour, even. Please.”

“No. No, because you think I’m a fucking liar.”

“I think you’re a kid who got rejected by his shithead dad for being himself, and it was wrong. And your stupid mother didn’t know how to fix it, so she pretended it never happened because she was hanging on by an emotional thread herself,” Bonnie blurted out, and Colby’s jaw hung open. “And I will regret that behavior, and so many more choices I made, until the end of time. But I need you home for Christmas. So please come home for Christmas, Colby. I love you. Goodbye.”

His phone went dark. The line dead.

“What the fuck was that?” Colby whispered into the universe. He reached for his phone, and a second later his finger hovered over his mom’s name in his contact list, on the verge of calling her back. But instead, he pivoted and called Brodie.

As it rang, he stood up to go back into the house. Despite the emotional chaos swirling inside him, he’d reached the munchies part of his high, so he pulled open the fridge and stared at the contents. There wasn’t much because Colby preferred to order and Trevor never ate. He was probably ten pounds lighter than when the band had formed, and he was already waifish. Brodie didn’t answer, so Colby hung up, grabbed some cheese and a half-open jar of salsa, and put it on the counter. Then he grabbed a pack of tortillas he’d bought a week ago that was sitting on the counter and examined it. They didn’t seem moldy.

He paused to text Brodie.

Call me now. It’s an emergency.

He had two eggs from his neighbor, who had gotten chatty with him when she realized he was the lead singer of that band she liked. She was almost eighty, so Colby had been floored when she had been outside tending to her garden, and he’d heard her humming “Uncomplicated Ending.” They’d become friendly. She had two chickens on his property named Linda and Debbie, and every now and then she left a couple of eggs on the stoop for Colby with a note telling him which chicken laid them. The two eggs he was holding in his hand now were from Debbie, and he knew that because the note had read Debbie’s a real fertile myrtle this week. Hope you can use them! Rock on, Suze

“Trev! You want a breakfast burrito?” he called out as his phone began buzzing on the counter. Brodie’s name flashed across the screen, and he grabbed it, hit accept, and tucked it under his ear. This was not a call for speakerphone with Trevor’s bedroom door a few feet away. “Brodie. What’s going on with Mom? She just called me and freaked out about Christmas.”

“Hi. Yeah, she made me cancel my trip to Hawaii,” Brodie said. “It’s good to hear from you. I didn’t know you still had my number. How are you?”

“Why? Is this really about Atlas?” Colby asked as he pulled a bowl from the cupboard and placed it on the tile counter. He ignored Brodie’s other comments, not willing to make this a big brotherly moment. “She kept saying he had something to announce. But then she… she admitted she knows about what happened and she called Dad a shithead.”