Absolutely Almost(63)

            “She lied?” I asked. That didn’t sound like Calista. Calista wasn’t a liar.

            Mom sighed. “Why didn’t you tell me she’d taken you to the zoo last week instead of going to school, Albie? I didn’t even find out about it until your teacher called me at work this morning to ask about a suspicious note.”

            My stomach had a rock in it, a real rock, hard and round and heavy.

            “Calista didn’t write that note!” I shouted. I saw Sage Moore staring at me as he walked by with his older sister, but I didn’t care. This was worth yelling about. “I wrote that note. Calista didn’t lie about anything. Call her back and tell her you want her to be my babysitter again.” I tugged at my mom’s purse, trying to find her phone. “You have to.” I tugged and tugged.

            “Albie, stop it!” Mom said. She straightened up to standing.

            “But you have to!” I was crying then, and more kids were staring. Laughing too. But I didn’t care about them either. I couldn’t believe this was all my fault. I couldn’t believe my mom fired Calista and it was all because of me, because I signed my mom’s name on a stupid piece of paper. I should’ve signed it better. If I was better at signing, this never would’ve happened.

            “Mom, you have to!”

            “I’m sorry, Albie.”

            That was all she said.





voice mail.




            After my mom had to race back to work, I found Calista’s phone number on the list of emergency contacts on the bulletin board in the kitchen. I knew I probably shouldn’t call it.

            I called it.

            “This is Calista.” It was her voice mail. “I can’t answer the phone right now, so please leave a message.”

            I left a message.

            “It’s Albie,” I said. “I was just calling because . . .” I stopped talking. Because actually, I wasn’t so sure what I wanted to say. I’d never called Calista’s phone before, and it was weird.

            I looked at the fruit in the bowl on the counter. I knew I should finish talking and hang up, because any minute Harriet the cleaning lady was going to be done vacuuming in my parents’ room and come out to the kitchen and be mad at me for being on the phone, because it wasn’t in her job description to watch children, and it wasn’t worth the extra cash.

            “It was my fault, about the note,” I said into the phone. “I’m sorry.”

            I wanted to say something else, but I couldn’t think of anything. That was all there was to say.

            I hung up the phone.





mad.




            That night at bedtime, Mom knocked on my bedroom door, because it was closed.

            “Time for bed, Albie,” she said, even though I was already under the covers. Mom sat down on the edge of my bed. I was reading a new Captain Underpants book, and it didn’t even have the fake Johnny Treeface title on it, but Mom didn’t say anything about that. She tucked the covers up around my armpits, even though I was way too old for tucking. She leaned over and kissed my forehead.

            “I love you, Albie,” she said.

            “You do?” I asked. I couldn’t help it.

            “Yes.” She smoothed back my hair. “You are caring and thoughtful and good.” She blinked at me, and that’s when I started to wonder if maybe she’d been crying earlier.

            “I do the best I can,” she told me. She said each word real slow. “At being your mother. I don’t always know how, but . . . I try.”