Prudence: Also, I thought you didn’t want me to deal with any medical stuff?
Jack: Don’t be like that.
Jack: I still want you to meet every person who will be hanging around the house a lot.
Jack: and the physiotherapist will be here every day, and twice if needed.
Prudence: I’m sorry.
Prudence: You’re right, I’ll be there.
Prudence: The nurse from this morning, Olive, seems nice.
Prudence: You did good finding all this medical staff by yourself.
Jack: Thank you, Sunshine.
Prudence: I’m running a little more, and thenI’ll come back to that monstrosity of a house.
Jack: You mean, come back home.
Prudence: I said what I said.
Prudence: You are my home, no matter the house we’re living in.
PRUDENCE
I hate it.
I want to take all the bad things I said about Seattle and the rain back. The sun sucks. It’s 8a.m and I feel like I’m running in hell because of this insufferable heat.
When I was running in Indianola, the only worries that I had was that I might slip in the mud or catch a cold. Now, I have to stop every fifteen minutes or I might faint from the heat.
I’m a sweating mess when I stop near a water fountain to drink before I let myself fall ungraciously on a park bench.
Have I mentioned how much I hate it?
That wall that Jack built between us is the worst of all.
I brought my resume to the LAPD yesterday afternoon, but in themeantime, I don’t haveanythingto do. Spend my days on the beach? I don’t have a swimsuit. Should I go buy one? Maybe a few books to occupy the time? Yes, I should go to a mall or something. Buy some stuff to make that ridiculous house more homey. And a few books. And a goddamned swimsuit.
My phone rings with an incoming video call and I smile when my best friend’s face appears.
“Hey, Nuri.”
She hasn’t changed a bit since college. She still wears her typical Asian straight black hair in a shoulder length bob, still rocks the same cat eye eyeliner and red lipstick. The only difference between her college self and grown up version are her clothes. She traded her colorful grungy looks for still colorful elegant business dresses and suits.
“Prue! I’m so sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner,” she says, her background moving like she’s speed walking in the streets. “It’s been a few hard weeks, the kids are getting sick one after the other, and it’s the holidays so we’re trying to find our new rhythm with Elle and Sophia and the new daycare…”
Nuri is a thirty years old mom of four—very energetic—kids. She always wanted to have the picture perfect family and, so far, she’s acing it. The absurdly sweet husband, the nice house in San Francisco, the great career in advertising. They had their first boy—Eric—at 24 and their daughter—Alfie—at 26, almost exactly two years later. The problem is, when they decided to try for their 3rd and last child when Alfie turned one, they found out she was already five months pregnant. Withtwin girls.
And god, how I believe her when she says it’s a handful and she never wants to have kids again.
“It’s alright, don’t worry about it. How are you guys?”
“Oh, you know how it is. We run everywhere and just hope that we’ll avoid the walls,” she laughs but I see the exhaustion in her eyes. She casts a glance to the side and frowns before she’s suddenly inside a building and the noise from outside stops. “But what about you? How’s Jack? How’s L.A?”
“Jack’s fine, I guess,” I sigh. “And as for L.A, I’m not really sure… I wanted warmth, not hell…”
