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Four separate squares filled the screen, Chet and Eva smushed into one together. Dominic and Angelica had sometimes done the same, but tonight they were on their own. Their father was not on the screen with their mother, Chet noticed, his radar going up. Maybe Eva was right in reading something into how their mother sounded lately.
“Hello, my children.”
No matter how old they got, she was always going to say that. This wasn’t an assumption; she had told them she would. Chet and his brother at thirty-two, Eva twenty-eight, and Angelica almost twenty-six, were May Endicott’s children. Always and forever.
“Hey, Mom,” sang a chorus of four voices through the line.
“It’s so good to see all your faces.”
“It’s good to see you, too, Mom,” Chet said.
“I don’t know. I could go without seeing Chet’s face too often,” Dominic teased.
“Ha. You’re his twin, dummy,” Angelica said. “You see that face every day in the mirror.”
“Did you just call me a dummy? What are we, five years old?” Dominic smirked as Angelica stuck out her tongue.
“Apparently so,” Eva said as she laughed at her siblings.
“Goodness. It hasn’t even been a minute and you all are starting in on each other.” Their mother shook her head, but Chet saw the quick movement of a smile on her face as she spoke. He and his siblings all knew how much their mother loved seeing them together, especially when they were ribbing one another. It meant all was right with her world.
“Where’s Dad? Is he coming soon?” Dominic asked, although Chet could tell from his siblings’ faces, they all had the same question.
His mother turned to look behind her as if wanting to make sure she wasn’t heard. Eva and Chet exchanged a glance, and Eva whispered, “That’s weird.”
They turned back to the screen as their mother leaned closer. “He’s not joining us for this call. He’s resting. And anyway, I wanted to talk to all of you alone.”
Now Chet’s radar was on high alert. Not only was it odd for his dad to be resting unless he had gone to bed for the night, but his mother’s secretive demeanor also made him think Eva was right. Something was up.
“Mom, what’s wrong with Dad?” As the youngest of four, Angelica had no problem getting to the point.
“Yeah. I just saw him, and he seemed fine.” The furrow on Dominic’s brow matched Chet’s.
“He’s fine. Really. But he has gone to see his doctor and they are running some tests.”
“Tests? What kind of tests?” Angelica’s voice rose as she spoke.
“Hush, hush. I don’t want you to be alarmed and I really don’t want you to wake your father.” She looked over hershoulder again. “He doesn’t even know I’m talking to all of you about it.”
“About what, exactly, Mom?” Chet leaned forward, his forearms on the table. They actually all had gotten larger in each screen as if they were in the same room putting their heads together.
“Well, we don’t know. But he’s tired more often, and he’s had some chest pains.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” Angelica said.
“It’s nothing to be concerned about right now. We’ll know more when the test results are in. It could be indigestion.”
Chet could hear the concern in his mother’s voice. He highly doubted his dad’s doctors were thinking indigestion was the problem.
“When will the test results be back?” Dominic asked.
“Hopefully next week.” She turned at the sound of something in the background. “It sounds like your father’s up. I need to go. We’ll do another call soon—I can phone each of you when I have time. I just wanted you to know. I love you all so much.” She blew kisses into the screen and then was gone.
Chet and Eva sat back in their chairs and stared at the screen. Dominic and Angelica did the same. They all stared at one another until Eva voiced what they were all thinking.
“What in the world just happened?”
Chapter Six
