Unsettled

Breathless

Tom checks the time before getting out of the car and walking towards the building from the parking lot. He's pleasantly early, just like he likes. When he can control his arrival to events, meetings, etc., he always likes to show up with enough time to spare to get to know his environment. Today's meeting shouldn't take long and then he can go to pick up Max. In the last few phone calls between them she had seemed distracted, perhaps tired after her trip. All the more reason to take Max for an extra day — perhaps have a little father-son adventure.

He's in the building, almost to the receptionist's desk when his phone buzzes in his pocket. He remembered to put it on silent in prep for the meeting so it wouldn't issue forth the little melody Max adores so much.

The number that appears on the screen gives him pause.

She's calling? Now? She knows he's going to be unavailable until sometime mid-afternoon. They'd discussed it yesterday in planning for the weekend and he has the follow-up texts to prove it....

"Hullo?"

The receptionist looks up and gives him a nod he almost misses. He waves in return, a half-hearted greeting he'll amend once he figures out what has prompted this phone call.

"Hullo?" He repeats. Had she pocket dialed him? She's done it before — an accidental button push while trying to retrieve her wallet from her purse — and he'd sat there listening to her idle conversation with the cashier and then her sing-song words to Max on the drive home.

Then he hears the soft inhalation, a rustling and whooshing of movement before his son's voice comes over the line, "Daddy? Mummy's sick."

The discovery that the right sequence of buttons pressed would net him a parent, depending on whose mobile he snatched, was one that had prompted a very serious discussion between the three of them. Well — as serious a discussion as one can have with a three and a half year old. Mummy and Daddy's mobiles weren't toys. And most certainly shouldn't be removed from bags, purses, or briefcases. She'd been several hours away before realizing that Max had taken possession of her phone the other morning, commandeering it so he could play that block game he liked.

"Max, mate..." He pauses, rethinking his tone as he continues towards the receptionist's desk. His words as he spoke them had almost sounded cross. This wasn't Max trying to coax him into coming for dinner, or any manner of other mischief to try to get mother and father in the same place at the same time. No, his son's voice conveyed concern. "What do you think about giving Mummy a few days to feel better?"

He is rewarded with sounds of Max hemming, considering his father's offer. Tom suppresses a chuckle. It wouldn't do to have his son overhear his amusement, though he's almost positive that Max's expression in this moment is one of consternation.

Taking the final few steps to reach the reception desk Tom presses the palm of his free hand into the edge of the counter, leaning into the structure while he finds a way to end the call with his son. "Max, mate, can I talk to Mummy? Give Mummy the phone for me. But don't hang up..."

They'd learned the hard way to give careful instructions.

He is graced with the sounds of Max moving around the house, muffled footsteps proceeding the bump of him walking into the door — presumably the bedroom door — and then the surprised sounds of his mother.

She sounds strained, more so than she had yesterday while debating with him over the proposed weekend stay. "Max? Munchkin when did you..." Her words come clearer as she accepts the phone. "I'm sorry, Tom. I didn't realize he had my phone, again. I'll let you go. You've got your..." She breaks off the sentence, stopping to cough — the rattling noise Tom hears as she does so, a bit alarming. "...meeting now, right?"