A Quiet Kismet

Chapter Six

AGE 8

Mom started dating again in the fall when I was in third grade. It was supposed to be a secret, but I heard her on the phone talking about a man that asked her out for coffee. I guess coffee was a big deal because suddenly Mom was all bubbly and sweet like Delia and Jaimie were when a new boy entered their radar.

She would take phone calls at night and shut her door and talk in hushed tones. She took her time in the morning doing her makeup and fixing her hair. She wore perfume on her neck, and started buying clothes that were a little tighter. And she was always going out on a coffee run with an unnamed 'friend'.

Jorge had told me that coffee was code for dating. So if codes meant anything, then Mom was dating again. I just didn't think it was a good idea when it first started happening. Only because Mom already worked so much she was hardly home, and Delia didn't come around as much anymore because she was married. Jorge and Jaimie tried to help but the house was too much to keep up with just those two, plus they were both in high school and wanted to be with their friends all the time.

The house was constantly in disarray, and sometimes Mom and Jaimie forgot to cook. We ordered a lot of pizza and Chinese food. I ate so much takeout that kung pao chicken now repulses me.

I never told any of my friends at school what was going on. None of them would ever understand, their parents were all happily married and very much a family unit. I didn't do as well in school anymore. Sometimes I would forget to do my homework because I was busy keeping both Julia and Ruby busy until Mom could come home and tuck them into bed.

I remember being tired all the time and getting in trouble for sleeping a lot in class. Some nights I stayed up late watching Ruby fall asleep and imagining what Dad would say about this little baby learning to walk and talk while he was gone. Some nights I tucked Jules into bed and hoped this would be the night she stopped asking about him because I didn't think I could make up any more adventures for him.

Sometimes I thought about not going home ever again. I didn't want to go back and watch Ruby and Julia sleep and get worried all over again. I didn't want to watch Jorge and Jaimie try to be parents while Delia barely checked in because she had a new husband.

I loved them. I loved them so much it hurt sometimes. But I wanted to go outside and play, ride my bike, go to sleepovers. Sometimes I just wanted to be eight and not feel like the weight of the world was on my shoulders. But I couldn't, because once the weight is on your shoulders, it's hard to take it off. Because if I didn't worry, I felt guilty and it reached down into the pit of my stomach and squeezed so hard that I had to sit down.

I looked up what it meant to be worried all the time one day after the world stopped spinning for a second. Google told me it was anxiety. Anxiety. I spelled it out twenty times on a piece of paper during class. Then I crumpled it up and threw it away. I was a spelling bee champ in second grade. I didn't win again in third grade because I didn't study the words, because I stayed up most nights watching Ruby and Jules. I knew how to spell anxiety though, A-N-X-I-E-T-Y. It was a noun. I had a noun.

One night I tried to tell Mom about it, and she laughed. Not a light funny laugh either. It was almost a mean laugh. Mom said if worry is anxiety then the whole world has it, and that I better buck up because there are worse things to worry about than a spelling bee. I don't think I said it clearly enough. I didn't care about the spelling bee, I cared that I cared too much. Or maybe not enough.

I went to my room and cried myself to sleep because it felt like it was never going to end. The worry would always be there. The weight of the world too. I wished a lot that Dad would come back and take me away. I wished it so often that I pretended he would swoop in any day and take me away. Julia stopped asking about him eventually, but I still found myself telling stories about him. It stopped being about making Jules feel better and started being about me trying to believe them to be true.