Brett:Hey. I don’t know what the fuck is going on right now. I have tried calling you and Laura a thousand times. I have the girls. We have eaten dinner with my parents, and I’m supposed to drop them off at your place. Where the hell are you guys?
Lucy:Seriously, Max. What’s going on?
Brett:I would really appreciate an answer. Are you home?
Grace:Lucy just texted me. Where are you? Is everything okay?
Brett:I’m getting really pissed off here. Trying to keep the girls busy. They’re getting tired. WTF is going on?
Brett:Your sister told me Laura had an appointment tonight. Is everything okay? Please let me know. I’m serious. What’s going on?
Brett:Max, if something is happening with Laura and the baby, please let me know. I know we’ve never gotten along, and don’t take this the wrong way, but I still love her. I care about her. She’s the mother of my children, for crying out loud. Please, text me, call me, whatever. Just please answer me.
There was no Chinese in the kitchen.
My phone began to ring. This time, I heard the chime, set to the highest possible volume. It rang clearly through the house, echoing off the empty walls. It was so damn loud.
Laura and the girls playfully teased me about it sometimes, saying things like, “Is that loud enough for you, Max?”
It choked me up now to acknowledge that I hadn’t heard it at all while I was sleeping. It rang and rang and rang, and I hadn’t heard a fucking thing.
God, something is wrong. Something is fucking wrong, and I slept through it.
Deaf fucking asshole. Useless.
What am I going to do if the baby starts crying and I don’t hear him? What kid deserves a dad like that?
Fucking useless bastard.
I squeezed my eyes shut, pushing my father’s faraway voice out of my head as I put the phone to my ear. “Brett.”
“Max! Jesus fucking Christ! Finally! Where the hell are you? Are you at home?”
“I’m sorry,” I said, walking through the kitchen to the front of the house. “I … I slept and my hearing aids—"
“Are you at home?” he asked, enunciating every word slowly, loudly, treating me like a moron. A deaf moron.
“I am …”
My voice trailed off when I looked through the living room window and spotted Laura’s car, parked in thedriveway, exactly where it always was when she was home and exactly where it shouldn’t be right now.
“I gotta go, Brett.”
“Where the hell is Laura, Max?”
I turned around in the living room, my heart bouncing violently off the walls of my chest. My hands trembled, my lungs struggled to pull in air, the pain in my head intensified. If she was here now, where were her things? Her bag, her coat …
She was bringing home food, dinner, Chinese …
There was no food in the kitchen.
“Babe?” I called out, spinning on my heel.
“What the hell is going on over there, Max?!”
My unsteady breath hit the phone as I said, “Her … her car is here.”
“So, she’s there?”
