Page 60 of Call You Mine
I can still remember the frantic shuffling, the muffled voice of my mom saying his name, growing in volume when he didn’t respond.
The fire truck arrived first, and that was when I learned that firefighters respond to 911 calls, along with police officers and emergency medical technicians.
And when my brothers and I sat in the hospital, still in our pajamas, and our mom came to tell us that the doctor told her Dad didn’t make it, I decided I was going to be one of those guys who comes to the rescue. To make sure no other kid ever had to hold his little brothers and his mom as they cried, wishing his arms were as big as his dad’s, so he’d be able to wrap his arms around them all.
Neither Georgie nor I say anything until we reach the apartment door.
“I get why people always say, ‘I’m sorry’, when they find out someone died. There’s not really much else to say,” she says.
I’m surprised by the laugh that escapes my throat, the dryness of her delivery catching me off guard. But she’s right. “I always hated when people would apologize.”
“It’s the worst,” Georgie exclaims, unlocking the apartment door and holding it open for me to follow her in. “It’s like, what are you apologizing for? You didn’t kill him.” She toes off her sneakers and takes off her coat before hanging up her backpack on one of the three empty silver hooks by the door—hers looking newer than the other two. She unzips it, grabbing a binder and a pencil case. “Unless you're the driver of the car that crashed into him, I don’t want to hear you say sorry.”
I chuckle, but only because if I don’t, I think a tear will fall.
Stepping out of my workboots and walking into the kitchen with her, noticing how insanely spotless the apartment is, I feel like I’m making a mess just by existing in it. I can’t get over how much it looks like a staged home. No pictures, no unopened mail, no forgotten socks underneath the couch.
Since the bedroom doors are closed, it seems the place is devoid of any personal touches. The only thing I can spot is a small crystal bowl, one you’d find at a thrift store or your grandmother’s house. It’s sitting at the center of the coffee table in the living room, and it almost looks out of place, filled with tiny, colorful squares.
Matchboxes?
Georgie sets down her binder and pencil case on the counter with a small thud, bringing my attention back to her and our conversation.
“What was your dad like, G?”
She doesn’t say anything at first, letting out a sigh before opening the fridge only to close it after a few seconds. “The best. He was one of those dads who actually cared about the things I liked. He didn’t just pretend like my mom did.” She opens one of the cabinets and closes it almost immediately before turning to lean over the kitchen counter, grabbing two clementines from the bowl in the center, and handing one to me. “He would always ask me how my day was, but it didn’t feel like he was doing it because hehadto,” she explains as she peels the tiny orange.
I begin to peel mine, too. “I get that. Sometimes it feels like people ask you questions because it feels like they’re supposed to. Not because they actually care.” My mind goes to my brothers and my mom, and on the off chance that they do ask me how I’m doing or what’s new with me, they seem to stop listening if my answer goes longer than just one or two words.
Georgie nods, keeping the peel of her clementine in one piece and setting it down on the counter before she meticulously peels each of the white, stringy pieces off the fruit. “My dad would always remember every detail. So every day, when he picked me up from school and asked about my day, he’d bring up things I told him earlier. Ask about my friends, my teachers, my assignments.” She makes a neat little pile of the white strings on the peel as I finish peeling mine.
I split my clementine in two, popping one half into my mouth.
“And when I didn’t want to talk,” Georgie continues as she inspects hers, making sure every string from the peel is pulled off. “He wouldn’t make me. He’d just turn up the music and drive. Or, if we were at home, he’d pick a record from his collection and let it play all the way through before checking on me. He wouldn’t try to make me have a conversation with him when I didn’t feel like it.”
I let her words sink in, listening carefully as she opens up to me, and I’m grateful for this chance to get to know her. I had wondered why she was so interested in my record collection when she came over with Ava earlier this week, but I didn’t want to pry. I didn’t want to ruin the small connection we were making. But it all makes sense now, why she wanted to listen to them.
They reminded her of her dad.
“I’ve never told anyone that,” Georgie says, looking up at me as I pop the other half of my clementine into my mouth, and her face immediately twists. “Did you just eat your clementine in one bite?”
“No,” I say through my full mouth as I hold up two fingers, lightening the mood but not forgetting what she shared with me—I don’t think I ever will.
“Two?” she laughs as she finally starts peeling hers apart and popping one of the tiny crescents into her mouth. “It’s not a race.”
I swallow. “Maybe not to you, loser,” I joke, and she smiles, shaking her head at me in a way that reminds me so much of her sister—who I still haven’t heard from.
Grabbing my phone from my back pocket, I check to see if I have any messages or missed calls from her, but there’s nothing. Just a text from my uncle asking if everything’s okay. I send him a quick reply letting him know we’re all good and that I’ll explain more on Monday.
“Do you have to go?” Georgie asks, and for a heartbeat, her voice slips into something more childlike—one moment a teenager, the next, a little kid again.
“Oh, no,” I slip my phone into my back pocket. “I just wanted to make sure I didn’t miss a message from your sister.”
“When she texted me that you were picking me up, she said she had some stuff to finish up at work. I texted her when we got here, and she said she was almost done and wasgoing to run some errands before grabbing some packing boxes for—” her voice trails off, growing unsure all of a sudden at the mention of tomorrow. “For moving into your house,” she finishes.
The thought that she’ll have lived in three different places in the span of just over a week makes my chest hurt.
Even more so when I remember that my house won’t be the last.
