Jo
I hadn’t planned on driving up to Jamie’s yesterday, so I hadn’t planned on driving back to the apartment again this morning. It’s not like my parents are going to mention it, exactly, but at least if I’d walked up after the archives there wouldn’t be an obvious sign of absence. As it is, I get inside, check my phone, and see Dad’s sent me another text: Are you doing breakfast with Jamie or do you want to join us? Either he heard me come in or his timing was oddly impeccable.
At least I’ve got an easy answer: He’s already at the farmer’s market. Did you have a place you wanted to try?
Amanda told us about one. Meet you outside in 15?
That probably means something other than Babycakes, but there’s Trenary Toast, also right there downtown, and Java Bay isn’t that far away. There’s Provisions, too, which will be more or less downstairs from my next apartment, but their menu’s limited. Mom’s only good with a single option if she’s the one who picked it.
It’s a deliberate, foreign thought: my next apartment. I’ve been in the one in Traverse City since I moved back. It’s not sentimental—I’ve barely even hung anything on the walls—but at least I had it. And yeah, it’s a studio apartment, and I don’t really like it, so if Jamie was told it was the last one-bedroom, then he’d want to get it for me. At first I didn’t care just because I didn’t care about anything, and then it was a novelty for a while, but now it’s getting old. I can’t even bring myself to make my bed every morning when I can see it all day and think that I really should be the kind of person who makes her bed every morning.
Right now it doesn’t matter, because I’ve got a bedroom door I can close so I don’t have to confront it. I take my backpack into the bedroom all the same, though, to put yesterday’s clothes in the hamper and re-pack with a new outfit. I’m not going right back to Jamie’s, but the entire point of the backpack is the new outfit.
Back in the day, women wore so many jewels and gems because it was all they had left if their husbands kicked them out. I got a lawyer and escaped with more than just my maiden name back, but it still kind of feels like Jake turned me out with only what I could carry. He took my home, my best friend, all our friends … honestly it’s not such a surprise that my new friends here were all Jamie’s friends first. I’m good at melding into a group, but not so skilled at striking up new friendships on my own.
If I lose Jamie, I lose everything again.
God, stop it, Jo. If you want to be grumpy about something, figure out how you’re going to get your furniture from downstate. I hate moving, but on the plus—hah—side, I don’t actually have all that much since the divorce.
There’s a knock on my door, not shave and a haircut but Dad’s own rhythm, so I shoulder my backpack again and go to answer it. Before either of them can say anything, I announce, “Jamie got a call from the apartment manager yesterday that there was only one left, so he put money down on it, and I’ll be moving in there next month.” It’s close enough to point to, and from here it doesn’t matter which building I’m pointing at. I think they’ve got different numbers, so it’ll be the bigger one, but the email just had an apartment number on it.
Dad blinks, but Mom nods first. “I think we’ve got one more move in us.”
Uh. They really don’t have to—
“Okay, but if there’s not an elevator”—Dad points toward the same building—”I’m driving the truck and turning your stuff over to your game night friends.”
Well. That was easy. “There is an elevator, but I think they’ll be happy to help. Thank you.”
Mom slips an arm around my shoulders, which is kind of a trick with the backpack, but she’s had practice. “Good. I didn’t want to ask if you didn’t have plans. And Helen …”
“She seems lonely,” Dad agrees, tilting his head toward downtown to suggest we start walking. “Jamie’s been with her for, what, years now?”
I nod. “Since 2021.”
“And there’s another brother,” Mom clarifies. “A younger one.”
I nod again. “Shane. He’s in Houghton.” And it’s weird, because this is summer, so that means both he and his kids are off school—he teaches fifth grade—but they haven’t come to visit. I get that he’s in the middle of a divorce, except the middle seems to have lasted the entire time I’ve been up here, but wouldn’t the kids want to see their grandma? They’ve got to have some sort of custody agreement worked out for now, and Shane could bring them over even just for a day trip when he’s got them.
“Have you met him?” she wants to know.
This time I shake my head. I’m not even sure Jamie’s spoken to Shane since I’ve met him. “Where are we going, by the way?”
“Trenary Toast,” Dad answers, and he gets it right, so maybe Brent or Amanda told him how to pronounce it. “I’m getting the breakfast sandwich on the cinnamon roll.”
I haven’t tried it. Obviously their cinnamon rolls are good, but I’m not sure I want one with ham and egg on it.
“Yeah, I’m not sure about that one, either,” Mom confides. “I might just go right for a cinnamon roll.”
“Not a serial killer,” Dad recites, making us roll our eyes and laugh together as we head up the hill.
Chapter Forty-Four – coming November 13
