Faded Photos

[Verbena (DELETED 4198)]

The best case scenario would’ve been the answering machine picking up so she could fill the empty space on the other end with some neutral excuse and be done with it. She’d warn across the static that she wouldn’t be available for a few days, but that she’d get back with them and try again later. She wouldn’t warn that it was a lie to buy time until she could work her confidence back up to do that.

On the third ring, the bright voice severed the incessant sound when the older woman picked up. She reminded Sara of a bird, of a curious owl that straightened behind the phone as though any eyes were on her to watch, see, and judge. “Hello?”

“Momma?” Sara asked, but she knew. It was hard to mistake her mother for anyone else, audibly or visually. Brighten her strawberry hair, take away the excess weight put on after three children and her father’s health issues, and the two could’ve been sisters, truly. The woman’s thick Canadian accent came through like cream with a hint of lemon, just enough of a taste to make anyone’s lips pucker in trying to pronounce things exactly as she did.

“Sara?” she asked back. Her smile was heard, as well as her quiet mumble away from the phone. “It’s Sara.” She heard it, and her lungs tightened.
“Hey.”
“Hi, sweetheart! We haven’t heard from you in months. We were getting worried about you there for a while, eh?”

“I know,” Sara mumbled. Easing herself out the bed, she moved off to the side of the room. Pinning Roy’s cellphone between her hair and shoulder, she carefully picked up a CD case and flipped it over in her hands as though the words would somehow help her. “I know, Mom. You know that if I desperately needed you or Dad, I’d give you a call, though. It’s just been a busy few months for me.”

“Oh, yeah? Tell me about them, Sara Joyce,” her mother said. Maybe she didn’t intend for her to hear it, but Sara recognized the pot being shoved under a sink’s running water and a deeper laugh in the background. The world could have been ending and Debbie Johnson would find a way to talk about something as mundane as last week’s episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. And, if she did, the topic would no doubt find its way onto Roy, the cop.

“Well,” Sara started, putting the case down to pick up another. She kept her voice down whereas her mother had to speak up over the chatter. “I moved from Hamilton, for on—“
“You moved?! Oh, finally! That’s fantastic! You know, your father and I were so worried with you living there by yourself.”
“Mom, it was no different than any other city. We went over that, remember?”
“Yes, but even with Emanuel, we were never comfortable about the ide—Is that why you moved? Did you meet somebody, Sara?”
“No. No, I moved…over here.”
“Over here?”
“Harper Rock.”

Her mother was silent in her confusion, but Sara was quick to pull her out of it. “With Roy,” she answered.
The laugh that came from the other end was either relieved or distracted and Sara honestly couldn’t tell which. She smiled, too, even though her low tone probably made it unheard.
“He finally spoke sense into you, eh? Well, at least somebody could.”
Yeah. At least somebody could. Sara wanted to laugh and assert just how wrong her mother was and that it’d been the other way around, but it was hard to with her mother cutting back in.
“Good! That’s very good, Sara. And how is he? Is he around?”
“He’s sleeping,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at the bed before moving back for it.
“So late?”
“You know how his shifts can be. Up all night, sleep all day. He, uh, moved to the eleven-to-seven shift and spent today taking me around to put in job applications. He deserves some sleep, you know.”

She carefully settled her weight back on the mattress and tucked one leg up on the edge of it with the other stretched to the floor to support her sit up. Using her free hand to rub at the polish on her toenail, she listened to the other end of the line while facing the wall.
“I know he loves it, Sara, I truly do, but you have got to help that boy realize that he can’t work his life away. – Your father is cutting me an evil look right now, I want you to know,” she laughed. “But you and I both know it’s true. Maybe you can help each other, eh? He can get your feet rooted with a new job and you can help him find someone suitable. I was so worried after Carol—“
“I’ve got it…We’re fine.”
“So long as you say so, dear.”
“Hey. Don’t tell Mikey, right?”
“Lie? Sara, don’t ask me to. He’s here and knows we’re talking. If it helps, though, I’ll tell him to keep his comments to himself. You know he means no harm by it. He loves you, very much. He’s your brother, Sara Joyce. He only wants the best for you.”

The shift in weight behind her made her look. She smiled at Vigilant’s blue eyes, but they were pinpointed and focused with a set confusion as though asking who it was she was talking to.
“Sara? Honey? I have to finish these dishes, but would you like to speak with your father? We both miss you very mu—“
“No, no. I need to go, too, but I ju—Yes, ma’am. No, its f—Yes, ma’am. I love you, too. Ye—Yes, we love them all. Bye, Mom,” she finally got out, closing the phone. Vigilant said nothing, but she could feel the question under his fingertips when she passed his cell over to him. She didn’t know how else to answer.
“I bought us until Christmas.”