Are You Sitting Down? (39 page)

“Hello?”
Mark said with a bit of harshness.

He must not have looked at the calle
r
ID to see who was calling.

“Mark?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s me.”

“Hey there.
Where are you?”

“I’m at Mom’s.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, things are fine.
How are your parents?”

“Fine.
They asked about you.”

“That’s nice.”

This was the point in the conversation where we normally just said I love you and good-bye, or Mark asked what was for dinner.
It was one of our typical small talks
where I always knew what to say and what
h
e said was very little.
Tonight, I was using the small talk to buy time while i
n
side my head, I was rehearsing what I really wanted to say to him.

“Do you think you can get away for a second?”
he asked.

“Umm…probably.
Is something wrong?”
I asked.

My heart started racing.

“No.
Nothing’s wrong.
I’d just like to see you is all,” he said, choosing his words slowly.

“Where are you?”

“I came home.
I was hoping you might call.
If you didn’t, I was going to call you later to see if you wanted to come back and help with the kids’ gifts.”

I was silent, and must have been for too long.

“Ellen?
Are you still there?”

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“Do you think you can leave for a little while?”

“Sure.
I’ll be right there.”

I hung up the phone and sat there for a moment.
It was Christmas Eve; surely he wasn’t going to spring bad news on me tonight.
Was he seeing someone else?
Was he moving out now instead of in January?
Did he want to fight me for full cu
s
tody of the kids?
My mind ached with all these questions.
I wanted to cry, but knew I needed to hold it back until after I’
d
gone inside to tell Mom I
was
leaving for a little while.

“Mom, can you come back to the kitchen for a mi
n
ute?”
I said when I came in the back door.

“Be right there!”
She seemed to be in better spirits now.
“Are you going to join us to open your gifts?
Ellen, honey, what’s wrong?”
she asked
walking into the kitchen.

She rushed over to me and put a hand on my shoulder, concerned with the worried look on my face.

“It’s Mark.
I called him and he wants to see me,” I said, still holding back.

“Right now?”

I told her that he had left his parents
’
house and gone back home to put out the kids’ gifts.
I’d called him to tell him I still love him and I d
id
’t want a divorce, but I never got a chance to say any of that.
Instead, he asked me to come home and talk to him.

“Are you sure about this?”

“Mom, it
’
s Christmas Eve.
I don’t think he would make me come all the way home tonight just so we could argue.
I hope not, at least, but I need to go.
Can the kids stay here?”

“Of course, do you have your purse?
Go out the back door.
Go now, and I’ll tell them you ran to the store for me.
Call me if you need me.”

“Are you alright?”

“I’m okay.
I’m worried about Travis, but don’t let Mark spoil your Christmas.
You get out of there if he wants to argue.
I don’t want to have to be worrying about you too.”

“Thank you, Mom,” I said kissing her on the cheek.

I said good-bye and quietly snuck out the back door.
I left the lights on the car off until I was able to pull out of the drive and onto the road.
Back at home,
Mark’s truck was in the driveway.
I could see the tree lit in the window and the dow
n
stairs lights were on.
When I opened the door, Mark was lying
o
n the floor putting together an action figure command center for Robbie.

“Hi,” he said looking up from his
project
.

“Hi,” I
answered
in a quick short breath.

“I got all the gifts out of the attic.
There are still a few to put together, and Rachel’s doll house.
I thought you might want to help arrange everything around the tree,” he said, fil
l
ing the air with nervous words.

I was nervous too, but I didn’t know why.
I took off my coat and sat my purse down at the bottom of the stairs.
I walked over and sat down
o
n the floor next to Mark to admire his work.

“So, this is what Robbie wanted so badly?”

“Yep, it’s pretty cool.
Wish I had one when I was his age.
All of these lights really work, and if he pushes these bu
t
tons it makes sounds.
Here’s the control center, here’s the arsenal.
There’s even a little jail where he can lock up the bad guys,”
Mark
explained while pointing out all the features with just as much excitement in his eyes as Robbie would have when he saw it in the morning.

“Where are all the little men we bought?”
I asked.

“In that bag on the sofa.
Want to grab them and we can set them up
?
I’m done with the command center.”

I took the bag and emptied its contents onto the floor.
There must have been at least twenty or thirty different action figures.
I tore them from their plastic and cardboard packaging and put them all in a pile.
Each came with a little gun or acce
s
sory.
Mark took those and hung them in the command center on tiny hooks and clips to stock the miniature arsenal.

“These will all be lost in a few days,” Mark said hol
d
ing up a tiny pistol.

“Yep.
And these must be the bad guys,” I said holding up a boy and a girl action figure.

They were dressed in punk rocker clothes.
The boy had bright orange hair, and the girl had pink hair.
Their sleeveless shirts revealed arms filled with tattoos.
Their little plastic cheeks had scars.

“I want to be him,” Mark said taking the male figure from me
and examining him up closely.

He scrunched his eyebrows at the little man’s tattoos
.

“I guess I’ll be her,” I said.
“What now?”

“Well, we have the command center all to ourselves.”

“Great. Let’s order a pizza,” I said in my play voice which I used when playing dolls with Rachel.

I somehow doubted this chick figurine sounded like that.

“There are twin beds in the holding cell,” Mark said in his playful voice, walking his figurine through the roofless halls of the center.

“These beds are too hard,” I said.

I reached down and tapped
one of
the hard molded pla
s
tic bed
s
.
The sheets and pillow were painted on in the dull gray which was the same color of the walls and the floor of the giant toy, far from the soft elaborate set up of Rachel’s doll house.
But then again, I don’t think boys were worried about the sleeping conditions of the action figures they locked up as pri
s
oners.

“Okay, Goldilocks, the three little bears don’t live here,” Mark joked.
“How
‘
bout a kiss?”
h
e asked walking his figurine up to mine.

“Fresh!”
I teased.

With the magic of pretend and a little human interve
n
tion, I held my figurine up above the command center
in midair
as if she were flying.
Mark held his up too, extending the stiff arms for a hug.
Our little figures met in the sky above the command center and kissed, their hard plastic faces barely touching.
It was sweet.

“You do know these two are brother and sister, don’t you?”

“Oh no, we’re perverts,” I said pulling her away and laying her down on the bed in the prison.
“They should be locked away.”

I started sitting the other figurines up in various parts of the command center, sitting in chairs and standing at the co
n
trol panels.
They were frozen in position, waiting for Robbie’s
much healthier imagination to bring them to life.
Mark watched with his knees pulled up to his chest.
He was still a kid at heart, and I knew he couldn’t wait to see the look in Robbie’s eyes when he saw his new toys.
I caught him watching me.

“What?
Am I putting them in the wrong places?”

“No, you’re doing great.
I was just…watching.”

“Stop it!
You are making me nervous.”

“When’s the last time I told you how beautiful you were?”
h
e asked.

I froze like one of the action figures, thinking about what he just said.
It was not a question he would want me to answer truthfully.

“I dunno,” I said like a silly blond school girl.

I felt like he should be admiring my breasts and I should be twirling my hair.
Maybe he was.

“Well…I’m sorry because I don’t know either.
I really should have been telling you that everyday we’ve had t
o
gether.”

“Mark—”

“Shhh,” he whispered.