The Crying Call
The phone call came at 10:30 PM. It was a crying Gleek who is off for her first week-long solo visit with cousins. “Mom, I miss you.”
“I miss you too Gleek.”
“Everything is different here.”
“Families are all different aren’t they?”
“Yeah. No one goes outside. I look out the window and it is all bright and shiny and I want to go out, but no one will go with me!”
“Yes that family is more of an inside family. Do you play fun games inside?”
“Big girl plays great games, but the little girl games are boring. And they only let me have one yogurt a day! I miss you! I want to be at home, but I also want to finish my adventure.”
“Isn’t it funny how we can feel two opposite things at the same time? I feel that way a lot when I’m off at a convention.”
“Yeah. I want both things. Does Bestfriend miss me?”
“Yes she does. She came up to me at church and told me that she’d painted a picture of the two of you together.”
“She is like the perfect friend. She plays outside with me.”
“You’ll have fun when you’re back together. When do you travel to the next house?”
“Tuesday.”
“And then you’ll come home on Thursday.”
“On the 10th.”
“Thursday is the 9th.”
“The 10th will be one week, you said I would go for a week.”
“You’d rather come home on the 10th so you have a whole week?”
“Yeah. I want all of my adventure. Bye.”
“Bye honey. I miss you. You can call me again if you need to.”
” Okay. I miss you too. Bye.”
Sometimes they don’t really need me to fix anything, they just need me to listen.