Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 114211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
“Oh, that? No, I wasn’t gonna …” She laughs and waves it off. “No, no, why would I bother you over that? It was nothing.”
“How’d you fall? What’d you land on? Somethin’ broken?”
“Does it look like something’s broken?” She laughs again. “I’m fine, thanks for worryin’, but no more worryin’ is needed. I’ve got a score of over 200 this game,” she tells me with a wiggle of her phone, “whoopin’ this guy’s butt, got all the good letters.”
I was right. Scrabble. “What’s this meeting thing Dad’s at?”
“Want some breakfast?” she asks instead. “Dad may be comin’ home with donuts, if he remembers what I told him before he left, donuts includin’ the holes, mmm, I could die for those holes.”
“Nah, I got a … I got this.” I lift my coffee, realize I drank it all, then go to the trashcan by the back door and toss it in. Then I let out a sigh. “Starting to feel like a ghost in my own house.”
“Jif totally is a word,” she huffs.
“You should’ve called me. I’m still your son, y’know. I’d like to know when things happen.”
“Jif, I said!” she hollers at her phone, shaking it. “I’ll be back in a jif! J-I-F! How’s that not a word?? Am I spellin’ it right? Is it two F’s?”
“Mom …”
“The J falls on a triple point square, too!” She twists around in her chair. “Are you sure you don’t wanna stay for donuts? Should be back any minute now. Or you got somewhere you need to be? Another side hustle of yours?”
She makes a fun, energetic gesture when she says “side hustle”. I don’t know why I’m always reminded of participation trophies I got as a kid and the sound of my mom’s overdramatic applause at every little thing I did. She had high hopes for me back then. But with every passing year, I can hear the disappointment pushing itself between all her words more and more, her growing deflation at how I’ve turned out, all her hopes for my future wasting away.
She’s all but given up completely on my sorry ass, no matter what she insists. She and dad let me do whatever. It’s no longer a priority, wish, or goal to see me succeed at anything.
My failures aren’t surprises anymore. They’re expected. Try better next time, sweetie—but she doesn’t hold her breath anymore.
She’ll never admit this out loud. She loves me too much.
“Yeah. Got a … a side hustle thing today.” I shrug. “A little job. In half an hour, actually, so … I can’t stay long.”
“Don’t forget you promised your father you’d go door-to-door tomorrow. He wants to see you more involved, so you can …” She peeks back down at her phone, distracted. “Always takes so dang long to make his moves, whoever this is. Probably an eleven-year-old overachievin’ spellin’ bee brat.”
I wonder if that eleven-year-old has parents who still believe in them and say they’ll grow up to do amazing things.
Like beat a forty-seven-year-old woman at online Scrabble.
Let’s see you put that on your college résumé, kid.
Just then, the front door swings open. Other than the pool of light that splashes over me from behind, the first thing I hear is his heavy breaths and the crinkling of a bag hanging in his hand. When I turn around and lock eyes with my dad, he stops in place, and whatever good mood he might’ve been in a second ago is gone the next instant.
Yeah, I’m used to it.
“Look who finally graced us with his presence,” he grunts at me as he shuts the front door, then makes his way to the kitchen. “Is he here to eat our donuts? Ask us for money?”
“Oh, he’s here to help me with my Scrabble,” says my mother, always keeping things a joke, light and easy, even shooting me a little wink like she’s on my team or something.
I’m not fooled. No one in this house is on my team. “Finished up some late work at the church last night,” I tell him. “Just came home to take a quick shower and get some things, won’t be long.”
“Late work at the church,” echoes my dad with a huff. “When are you going to get a real job? Bring in some actual money?”
“Honey, what can I make with a T, a J, three I’s, an F—”
“If you don’t want to be part of the family business,” my dad goes on, steamrolling over my mom’s second attempt to lighten things, “then you’ve gotta have a plan of your own.”
“Jif with one F ain’t a word,” she explains.
“And comin’ and goin’ as you please, using our house like a free motel, that ain’t gonna work out for you much longer.”
“I could connect a T and an I to this L and make lit, but that’s just a sad amount of points, and I wanna use this triple space …”