Done Adulting Ch. 67 (Patreon)

“Hey, Manda,” Becky said coming in the door.

“Hey, Mom. We got another problem on our hands. Or not a problem. Just another situation.”

Becky set her purse down, concerned it had to do with the incident at the park. “What’s wrong,” she said, her voice hard and fast.

“I don’t know. He hasn’t said.” They walked down the hall to his room. “He was subdued, to the say the least, when I picked him up, and he hasn’t said a word to me. We went to the massage place and he fell asleep on me after, and when we got home he asked to take a nap.”

Becky approached him and put her hand to his forehead. “Does he not feel well?”

“I don’t know.”

“Has he been doing that the whole time?”

“Crying in his sleep? For the last twenty minutes. Guess he’s having nightmares about something.”

“And Diane didn’t say anything, or April?”

“No. Nothing. I called Diane and she didn’t know what happened, if anything. Then she called April, who said Jamie was quiet after Ella left for the day but that nothing happened that she saw.”

“I wonder if they got in a fight.”

“Maybe. What do we do?” Amanda sounded worried and upset. Her instinct, as always, was to fix what was wrong. She was prepared for skinned knees, bumped heads, and hurt feelings. She was doing her best to be there for Jamie’s special needs. But until Jamie told her what it was, she couldn’t say or do anything to make it better.

“Let him sleep. He’s gonna feel awful when he wakes up.”

Jamie did feel awful when he woke up, his eyes crusty and red, his sinuses overfull, his head aching. He stirred, and Becky and Amanda were both there, Amanda letting their mom take the lead.

“Hey, baby,” Becky whispered. “I bet you’d like a bath.” Jamie nodded weakly and pushed his arms out for Becky to lift him to his feet, taking him to the bathroom, and running him a tub. Amanda went to make him a bottle of water and get him some cold medicine to help with his headache.

Becky gently cleaned his face with a washcloth and had him blow his nose on it. She set it aside for a clean one and slowly scrubbed his body, peeling away the thin layer of massage oil on his skin. He drank from the bottle Amanda handed him. She looked pensive. He knew they were both waiting for an explanation, Becky, with twice the years in the world, looked more patient.

“Sorry,” he said. “For making you worry.”

“Don’t be sorry, baby.”

“I just … I guess I needed to just let it suck for a little while.”

“Are you ready now?”

He nodded and swallowed. “Ella told me she’s a rescue.” At the word, Becky’s eye shut tight and her hand wrung the washcloth as she held her breath, finally letting out an exhale. Amanda’s mouth dropped open just a little, then closed thinly, and her lips quivered and her eyes watered as she got used to the idea of someone she knew, even barely, being a rescue. Not wanting to lose her composure in front of Jamie, she stepped into the hallway and sat down on the floor with her back against the wall. Jamie told the story. Becky nodded along with her eyes on the rim of the tub, not being able to look at Jamie as he used the words needed to describe it. Amanda put her arms around her knees and let silent tears out.

It only took Jamie a minute to tell the story. He could see Becky was holding back to keep from letting more out than she wanted to in front of Jamie, not wanting to set off his tears.

“You knew about this stuff in the world.” They must have. Jamie knew about it when he went to the agency the first time. Becky nodded.

“It’s different, isn’t it,” he remarked.

Becky swallowed. “What’s that, baby?”

“When it’s someone you know. It’s different.”

Jamie knew. He’d known since what felt like forever, since he knew the first one, and the many since. Not ever like Ella though. He felt once more like a bystander.