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“I'm good. I miss you.” Part of me considered dropping all my responsibilities and getting on a plane at least once a day. Sometimes you just needed your parents, even if you were fully grown.
“I miss you too. You need to visit more.”
I sighed. “I will, as soon as Nationals are over. I’m there. I’ll even brave the heat for you.”
“It’s dry heat,” she said, and I sighed. We had this argument at least once a week.
“How’s Dad?”
“He’s attempting to grow fruit trees.”
That took me a second to process. Dad was always getting into new hobbies, but this was a first. “Fruit trees?”
“Yes, he fancies himself the Johnny Appleseed of Phoenix.” That was quite the image, my dad, who could be mistaken for Santa Claus in the off-season, sprinkling seeds in pots and hoping for them to grow.
“I love it. Everyone needs a hobby. How’s book club?” Half of the reason I called my mom so often was to get updates from her book club, which were BANANAS. Like, Bravo should start following them around with cameras and they’d have the next reality show hit on their hands.
“Get this, Patty’s husband, the one who travels all the time? Has a secret family.”
I gasped. “Shut up.”
She told me the whole sordid tale about Patty’s philandering husband and his other woman and the three children they’d had together. Before the internet, it was a lot easier to hide your second family from your first family, but not so much anymore.
I didn’t tell Mom about the thing with Echo, but she could tell I was uneasy about something.
“Talk to me. I can hear it in your voice.” I couldn’t put anything past her.
“Well, there was a little encounter yesterday. I don’t really want to go into it, but remember Echo?” I told my mom pretty much everything, so she did know about Echo. I mean, not all the dirty details, but she was a smart woman, so she’d probably figured it out.
“Yes, she’s coaching now, right?”
“Unfortunately, yes. Anyway, she showed up at the exhibition and I confronted her and it was just . . . weird. Like, I have no idea what the hell she was even doing there, unless it was just to piss me off. Wouldn’t put it past her.”
That had to be it. What else could be the reason? I couldn’t find one.
“Maybe she wants to rekindle something,” Mom suggested, and I made a gagging noise.
“Ew, Mom. No. She was just there to throw me off. To mess with my head. You don’t know this girl.”
I didn’t really know her either. One week of interaction did not tell you everything about a person. Plus, I didn’twantto know her. Not even a little bit, social media stalking notwithstanding. That wasresearchfor my job as a coach.
“I don’t know, Kiri,” Mom said in a singsong voice. “I think she might be carrying a torch for you.”
I sputtered.
“That’s ridiculous. It was ten years ago. I’m sure she’s got some hot wife who sits on her back while she does push-ups.” The mental image of that made me shudder.
“Do you know that for sure?” Mom prodded.
“Look, I said I didn’t want to talk about this, please?”
“Okay, okay. Oh, your father has come in from tending his fruit. He wants to say hello.”
I tried not to think about what else “tending his fruit” could mean.
“Hey KK, how’s life?”
“Hey Dad. It’s good.”
