The (Im)Perfect Escape

Chapter Ten

“Oh, that’s just lovely! Are there a lot of teens there? How many friends have you made?” Cheeriness fills Grandma’s voice.

“Um, there’s only about eight teens here at most, Grandma.” I pause for a second. “Grandpa, where were you getting your information about there being a lot of teens?”

“Back in my day, eight teens was a lot!” He huffs.

Grandma sighs. “Oh, Larry, eight is not a lot. One million three thousand and twenty-eight is a lot. I married such a silly goose. Anyway, Lila, darling, what are you up to right now?”

I take an uneasy gulp and look down at my arm. At least the ink faded a tiny bit. “Um…nothing. I was just,” I glance around the room, and the first thing I spot is a decorative pot, “making pottery.”

I want to mentally slap myself after spouting off that lie. I can just imagine the look that my grandfather’s giving the phone, wondering if I’m still as cracked as when I left. My grandmother prattles on anyway. “That’s wonderful, Lila! I’m so glad you’ve taken up a new hobby. I’m expecting a pot when you get home. I want it to be rainbows, kitties, and unicorns on it. It would be a great addition to my knitting room.”

Wincing, I kick the edge of the carpet with my big toe. Now I’m totally going to have to find a pottery place in this hick town, so I can make my grandmother that demented pot. This is exactly the same issue I had when they sent me away. After a minute of silence, I finally murmur my agreement to make her a pot.

She claps—which is a wonder to me, since how she claps and can hold the phone at the same time stumps my brain. “Awesome! Isn’t that what the kids are saying nowadays, Larry? ‘Awesome’?”

“I don’t know, Josie. I think it’s ‘rad’ or ‘ill’ or some oddness like that.” He clucks his tongue.

Ill? I shake my head sadly and focus back on the conversation which has now progressed to arguing over whether or not Mr. Fluffers had eaten our other kitty’s hair or not. I’m not even sure I want to touch that with a ten foot pole.

Even though they’re definitely going senile and probably insane, I still miss their madness. I’ve been dealing with it for the last four years after my dad died, and now the fact that I’m dealing with a house full of awkward silences and no rambling about kitties and unicorns and beavers…I’m going to stop while I’m ahead. I just feel a little lost without them. Well, I feel lost overall, but who’s counting?

I listen to them for a few more minutes, before I ask the dreaded question that we’ve all been skirting around. “How are the Walburgs doing?”

Silence envelops the other line. Finally, my grandfather’s the one to break the quiet, and when he speaks, it’s slowly and paced. “They’re working through it. They’re survivors.”

I wait for them to say something more, but they never do. I frown, and my hand clenches the towel into a tight ball. They think that if they don’t tell me anything about how Walburgs really feel about me, that it won’t affect me, but don’t they realize that I come up with my own ideas of what they say? I know they hate me after what I did. Instead I get cryptic answers that mean nothing to me.

“Um, I have to go. I’ll talk to you soon.” I don’t even let them say goodbye, before I hang up.

Maybe they think they’re protecting me, maybe they’re just trying to play God with my life again. I don’t know, but I wish they would just stop. I want to know what’s really going on with the Walburgs and what they think, and if it pushes me over the edge, well, I’m with a shrink. My grandparents should know this perfectly well, since they sent me here.