Excerpt from Daughters

I

Somewhere in the darkness, a phone was ringing. Delia, summoned from sleep, groped for it on her bedside table, but that was overly optimistic; her fingers encountered nothing except a box of tissues and a tube of hand lotion that had lost its cap. Any call in the middle of the night was an emergency, if it wasn’t a telemarketer on the other side of the globe. Delia pulled herself up, planted her feet on the cold floor, and surveyed the room. She’d gotten a bright pink case for the phone to make it easier to spot, but it was hidden now. When she was a kid and her father misplaced his car keys, he’d stand still, look around, and say, “Now if I were a bunch of keys, where would I hide?” But there wasn’t time to try that strategy now. She raced across the room towards the ringing, dug frantically through the clothing piled on the chair by the window, and unearthed her phone from the pocket of her jeans. She answered it just in time.

“Hello!” she cried, and in reward heard her daughter’s voice.

“Where are you, Mom?” The interrogative nature of Merry’s response was reassuring. It didn’t sound like an emergency.

“Home,” said Delia. She would have said “Where else would I be at this hour?” but Merry might find that confrontational.

“I thought you’d never answer.” Merry’s tone was querulous.

“I had to find my phone.” Had it been her older daughter, Kat, Delia would not have admitted this. Kat insisted that Delia keep her phone within grabbing distance so she could call for help in the unlikely event she’d topple to the ground out of earshot of anyone. But this was Merry, who regularly misplaced things, including, on one occasion, her daughter Eloise, when she was a baby in a stroller.

“We’re on our way,” said Merry.

On their way? Delia might not remember where she’d left her cell phone, but she was certain she’d remember if Merry had mentioned anything about coming to visit. She wasn’t sure which question to ask first and opted for one that seemed neutral.

“Where are you, dear?”

“We’re at the airport,” said Merry. “Our flight is leaving in like three minutes. We’ll be there tomorrow, but we have a layover in Chicago, so who knows when. But don’t worry, we’ll figure out a way to get home, so you don’t need to pick us up at the airport. Unless of course you want to.”

Delia ventured a question. “Who is the ‘we’? Is Josh getting time off?”

“Josh is not coming,” said Merry. “For God’s sake, Mom. Use your head.”

And before Delia could ask anything more, Merry said, “Gotta go—” her standard line for terminating calls, and hung up.