Notes: And here's Ricky's chapter. This one takes place in 2005.
Words of Wisdom
Part II: Ricky
The wine was cold and crisp on her tongue, light and immediately soothing. Sharon took another sip, then set the glass on her nightstand, centered carefully on a coaster. Beside it, her stereo was playing, soft enough that she could just hear it. She closed her eyes, listening for a moment. The CD case was too far away for her to reach, but she thought it was Bach. One of the violin concertos.
When she felt her eyelids grow heavy, Sharon shook herself and opened her eyes. She should've known better than to read these notes in bed, but sitting at her desk, her neck had started to ache. She reached for the file that had slipped off her of lap. Soon, she promised herself. She was just going to re-read Sergeant Elliot's notes on the absolute disaster that had unfolded in Priority Homicide earlier, and then she was going to bed.
"Mom? Hey, Mom? You in there?"
The words were accompanied by a loud rap at the door.
"You can come in." Sharon glanced up when the door opened.
"Oh," Ricky said, pausing in the doorway. "Are you working?"
"I'm..." Sharon glanced at her watch. A quarter to eleven, and she was several hours into her reporting cycle. If this was going to be another one of those moments where he told her he'd had two weeks to buy something for a school project and failed to do so, she was going to kill him. "It's all right. What do you need?"
"Did Dad move again?"
Sharon closed the file.
"Not that I'm aware of," she said. "Why? Is his phone disconnected again?"
"The landline is," he said. "His cell phone isn't, but he didn't answer when I called."
"I'm sorry, honey," she said. She set the file on her nightstand, balanced on top of her stereo. At least she was awake now. "Are you missing him?"
"There was something I wanted to ask him."
"Hey," she said, and shifted over to make room for him beside her. She patted the bed. "Come here for a minute."
It was just the two of them now, with Emily away in New York. She'd been gone almost two months, and there were still some days when Sharon wasn't sure that she'd ever get used to not setting three places at the table every day. But Emily was having the time of her life, and Sharon heard from her almost every day. If she didn't call, then she texted. She was texting Ricky too. The cell phone bill had skyrocketed the first month. Once she'd recovered from the shock, Sharon had quietly switched them all to unlimited texting and decided she wasn't going to charge them the overage this time. Her kids liked each other enough to keep in touch. She wasn't going to discourage that.
Ricky wouldn't come right out and say it, but he missed his sister. In Emily's absence, Sharon found him less reluctant to spend time with her, and once he'd started talking to her, she could hardly believe that this was her youngest child, her baby, and that he'd grown into someone so smart and so talented. And so tall.
She gave his leg an affectionate pat when he came and sat on the edge of the mattress. Like her, he was dressed for bed. The hem of his pajama pants fell somewhere near the middle of his calves.
She'd bought him those pajamas at the beginning of the school year.
Sharon shook her head.
"Everything all right?" she asked, remembering why he was there.
"I just need to talk to Dad," he said. "I need to ask him something."
"Okay," she said slowly. "How long ago did you call him?"
"When I got home from school," he said. "And again little while ago."
Damn Jack. Damn him and damn the way that there was seemingly no end to the number of times and ways in which he could disappoint his children.
The anger took her suddenly and by surprise, coiling into a tight knot in her throat.
Sharon breathed out, silently counting to ten.
"Would you like me to call him for you?" God knew where she would even start looking for Jack this time. He'd been apartment hopping for years now, and just when she thought she knew where to find him, he vanished without warning only to reappear somewhere else, months later. She doubted he'd answer the phone for her, either, but for her son—for Jack's son, not that he acted like that mattered for anything, lately, she would try.
Jack was always talking about moving permanently to Las Vegas. Maybe he'd actually done it this time.
"No," Ricky said. "Never mind. It's okay."
"What was it that you needed to ask him?" she said. "Maybe I know the answer."
"Uh..." Ricky grew suddenly quiet and uncomfortable, and he shied away from the hand she had rubbing his shoulder. "It's... it's a guy thing."
"Oh," she said, folding her hands in her lap instead. "And you need advice from another guy, is that it?"
"Yeah."
"Well—" Sharon took another look at her watch. "It's a little late to be calling either of your grandfathers right now, but if it can wait until tomorrow after school I'm sure they'd be happy to help you. Or your uncle."
"Which uncle?"
"You've got a few to choose from."
Ricky made a face.
"You really want it to be your dad," she said quietly. "I know."
"No," he said. "Well—yeah, but... it's just... I don't think those are good ideas."
"A teacher, maybe?" she suggested.
"That'd be worse," he said. "It's about Alyssa."
Sharon paused.
Ricky ran his fingers through his hair.
"Oh," she said, a second too late to sound unaffected. "Honey... You know that I wish your father was around for you more often... but are you sure that he's really the best person to ask when you're having a problem with your girlfriend?"
She tried not to show her alarm at the thought of what advice Jack might give... or what Ricky might want to ask him. There were too many potential disasters there.
"I don't really need advice," he said. "I know what I'm gonna do."
"Oh," she said again. "You just wanted to tell him about it?"
Sharon tried not to sigh when he nodded. He didn't want advice from his father. He wanted to know that his father cared enough to give advice.
She'd called Jack, back in the spring, to ask if he wanted to come to Emily's ballet recital. The last one before she went off to college. That he'd said yes hadn't been the surprise; Jack wanted to do plenty of things. What she hadn't expected was for him to actually show up and then stick around for most of the summer to spend some time with the kids. He'd even bought Emily some furnishings for her dorm room, but he'd apparently since decided that he had now fulfilled his parenting quota until Christmas.
"I'm sorry."
"It's okay."
They both knew it wasn't.
"Hey, Mom?"
She hummed.
"When Dad left, did he break up with you? Or did you break up with him?"
Sharon hesitated."You could say we broke up with each other." She'd been the one to file the separation papers. Jack had been the one to disappear with all of their savings. "Why? Are you and Alyssa having problems?"
"I still like her," he said. "But only when I'm not around her."
"You've been together... three months?" she said, and he nodded. "That's a long time when you're fifteen."
The only other relationship that she knew of had lasted a grand total of two weeks.
"Did the two of you have a fight?" she asked him.
"A lot of fights," he said. "Really stupid fights."
"That sounds tough." As carefully as she could, she asked, "Did something happen to cause these fights?"
"I don't think so," he said. "Just, all of a sudden, everything I say—and everything she says..."
Sharon nodded, waiting for him to finish.
"I want to break up with her," he said, but his voice rose on the last word as if in question.
"It can be a hard decision to commit to," she said.
"Not really." Ricky ran his hands through his hair another time. "I definitely want to break up with her. Only... she's got a test tomorrow and her birthday's this weekend."
"Oh," Sharon said, understanding. "And you're not sure if you should wait or not?"
"Yeah," he said. "It seems kind of mean."
"Does it?"
Ricky frowned at her. "You don't think so?"
"I think..." Sharon hesitated. "I think you have a couple of options here."
"Tomorrow's Wednesday," he said. "I can't break up with her in the morning, because she her math test after lunch... but if I do it Thursday, her birthday's on Friday."
Sharon nodded, and motioned for him to keep talking.
"I could wait until after the weekend," he said. "Sunday night or something."
Sharon rubbed her forehead, her eyes straying back to her nightstand. She'd changed her mind. The interview notes could wait until the morning. After this, she was finishing her wine and going to bed.
"You're doing the thing," Ricky said, sounding resigned now. "You think I'm wrong."
She tried to disguise the urge to laugh by clearing her throat. He was right about that, at least, but she didn't want to hurt his feelings by smiling now.
"I know you mean well," she said, "but I'm not sure what you're thinking of is the best idea."
"But I'm trying to be nice."
"I know you are," she said. "Let's just think about this, all right? What day is her party? Saturday?"
He nodded.
"How much fun do you think you'd have, if you went to her party feeling like this?"
"Not... very much."
"And do you think she might notice you weren't having much fun?"
There was a long pause, and then Ricky sighed. "Probably," he admitted.
Sharon pressed on. "And how much fun do you think she would have, knowing that?"
"You think I should do it sooner, then." He gave her a glum look.
"I do." She touched his shoulder. "The longer you wait, the worse it will be. In your case, the sooner you do it, more time she'll have to feel better before her birthday."
"I don't want to right before her test."
"Well... it can probably wait until after school," she said. "Any longer than that, you're just avoiding it because you know it'll be uncomfortable."
She took his silence as confirmation.
"What am I supposed to tell her?"
"You'll have to figure that out for yourself," she said. "Be honest, but don't be meaner than you have to be. Understand?"
He nodded.
"It could be," she added, "that she might want to break up with you too."
Ricky gave her a blank look.
"If you've been arguing a lot, the chances are good that she's not happy, either," she said. "Don't you think?"
"I didn't think of that," he said, after a long pause.
"Maybe you should," she suggested gently, when his face retained the expression of someone who had just made a profound discovery. "Does that make it easier?"
"Yeah."
Speaking slowly, she said, "You might find that when you're with someone and you're making each other unhappy, it's actually a relief to break up, once you get it over with."
She'd found it so. The first few months had been hard, when she'd found herself alone with two small children, no money, and a terrifying amount of debt. After that, as things had slowly gotten easier, she had realized that it was easier, not having Jack around. He'd been more of a hindrance than a help, the last year and a half before the separation, and their marriage had deteriorated into something she could now admit was unhealthy.
Ricky's face brightened a little. "I guess."
"There's only one way to find out," she said. "Let me know how it goes."
His hair was standing on end now from the number of times he'd played with it.
Sharon smiled faintly, and gave his shoulder another pat. "Come here," she said, and pulled him into a tight hug.
