Page 91 of What About Us

If we’re going to a game tonight, I need a Hendrix jersey. The T-shirt I brought with me won’t do. I also want a ball cap and anything else I decide I can’t live without.

But just as I walk inside, my phone rings, and when I pull it out, I see it’s Chris.

“Hey,” I say into the phone. “Long time no talk.”

“Hi, little girl,” he replies. He always called me that. I can hear the affection in his deep, gravelly voice. “How are you?”

“I’m good. Really good, actually. A lot has happened, and some of it you’re going to freak out over.”

“Oh, you mean the part about the bar burning down and your mom signing herself out of rehab?”

I stop by a rack of hockey pucks and scowl, unable to see anything around me as the weight of his words sinks in.

She fucking checked herself out?

“What?”

“I heard. Of course, I only heard what your mother told me when she showed up on my doorstep yesterday, and I trust about one percent of anything that comes out of her lying mouth, so I want to hear it from you.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose and let out a loud sigh.

“You’re kidding.”

“Wish I was.”

“Is she still there?”

Chris scoffs. “No, sweetie. Absolutely not.”

“How did she get from Great Falls to freaking Boise?”

Chris moved back to his hometown after the divorce, and I hated that he went so far away, but I also understood why he couldn’t stay in Silver Springs. Not just because it’s a small town, but because my mother would have relentlessly tried to hurt him, harass him, and generally make his life a living hell.

“She hitchhiked.”

I groan. “I’m sorry, Dad.” It feels good to still call him Dad. “I should have called you way sooner, but this just isn’t supposed to be your problem anymore.”

“You’re my problem, not her. So I want you to give it to me straight, and be brutally honest with me. Are. You. Okay?”

I miss him.

And so, I walk out of the store, find a bench, and tell him everything that’s happened since he left.

When I’m finished, I’m leaning forward with my elbows on my knees, my head in my hands, fighting tears.

“I don’t know where she’ll go,” Chris says, and I can hear the weariness in his voice. “I doubt she’ll go to Silver Springs. There’s nothing for her there.”

“There’s nothing for her anywhere,” I reply.

“I’m sorry about your house, Ives. That’s a bunch of bullshit. I’ll send you some money⁠—”

“No, you won’t. I don’t need it. I’ve moved in with Xander, and I’ll fix up the house at some point.”

Chris is quiet for a second.

“So, it’s serious with the Hendrix kid?”

I can’t help but smile. Xander and I are well into our early thirties, but Chris still calls us kids. He considers anyone younger than his own age of sixty-five a kid.