The Secretary: Checking In

Gillian’s mother has sent three messages. All of them end in a question mark.

The first asks how the trip is going.

The second asks when she’ll be home.

The third is just her name.

Gillian?

It’s amazing how much a person can put into seven little letters and a bit of punctuation.

I turn the phone facedown.

On the other side of the door, something scrapes across the floor. A chair, probably. There are a lot of chairs in this place. It makes sense when you think about it. People spend an awful lot of time waiting.

I’m supposed to keep this simple.

A text. A few words to let everyone know she’s busy with work and will be in touch when she can.

They could have asked anyone. They have people who can do practically everything. But I know her, and apparently that counts for something.

Surely I can manage one text.

I pick the phone up again.

We were supposed to grow old together. Gillian and me. There would be husbands, obviously, and different houses, but we’d still be us. She’d complain about the cost of everything. I’d tell her she needed better shoes. She’d tell me to drink some water.

She was always telling me to drink water.

I type: Everything is fine. Please don’t worry.

Then I read it back.

Awful. It sounds like a hostage wrote it.

I delete it.

A man opens the door without knocking. He looks at the phone, then at me.

“Done?”

“Working on it.”

He checks his watch.

“It’s her mother,” I tell him.

“I know.”

“Then give me a second.”

He stands there long enough to make his point, then leaves.

I don’t like being hurried. It makes it difficult to think, and thinking is already a little hit-or-miss lately. Sometimes I get halfway through something and have to stop and remember what it was supposed to be.

Gillian used to notice. She’d get that look on her face. The one where she wanted to ask a question but didn’t want to know the answer.

Then she’d ask it anyway.

I would give almost anything for her to have learned when to keep her mouth shut.

Almost anything.

The phone goes dark. I wake the screen, and there we are.

My twenty-first birthday. Both of us smiling like we have somewhere good to go after the picture.

I look fantastic. She looks happy for me.

I remember insisting we both use the photograph. I thought it was sweet. At the time, it was sweet. People do things without considering every possible consequence. If they didn’t, no one would ever leave the house.

I wish I hadn’t made such a thing of that picture.

Although, really, how was I supposed to know?

Her mother sends another message.

Just let me know you’re okay, honey.

I stare at it until the words stop looking like words.

I could tell her.

There. I’ve thought it. No one can say it never occurred to me.

I could write something that would make her call someone. She would call Lexi first, probably. There would be crying. Then there would be more calls. People would start asking questions, and Gillian would become a problem that needed solving right away.

And so would I.

I know what happens when something needs solving right away.

Her mother doesn’t need to know that. She has enough on her plate.

I’ve been in that woman’s house. I’ve sat at her table. I know the way she presses her lips together when she’s trying not to tell you what she thinks. I know how much she loves those girls.

Sometimes I used to wish she was my mother.

Then she’d ask what I intended to do with my life, and I’d remember I already had one.

I type: Sorry, Mom. It’s been nonstop. I’m okay.

That looks better.

That looks like Gillian.

There should be something else. A question about home, maybe. Gillian would ask about everyone. She can’t help herself. But questions invite answers, and answers mean more questions, and I’ve already been in this room too long.

I add: I love you. I’ll call when I can.

Technically, none of this is a lie I’m telling about myself.

I’m just passing along the kind of thing she would want her mother to hear. If she were in a position to think clearly. If she understood how much worse she could make all of this.

The message waits beneath my thumb.

I don’t send it yet.

For a moment, I let myself imagine her mother reading the truth instead. I picture her standing up too quickly, one hand against her chest. I picture the room going wrong around her.

No. We’ve had enough of that.

I press send.

The relief is immediate. Not happiness. I’m not a monster. Just the pleasant feeling of having completed something that needed doing.

I set the phone down, then pick it straight back up when it vibrates.

Thank God. Love you too, baby.

Below that, a heart.

I wait for something to happen to me. An overwhelming feeling, maybe. Something that would prove I’m still the sort of person who shouldn’t be sitting in this room.

Nothing happens.

Outside, footsteps approach. This time I’m ready.

The man opens the door, and I hand him the phone before he can ask.

“Her mother’s fine,” I say.

He takes it and leaves.

For some reason, I keep looking at my empty hand.

I don’t know why I said her mother was fine. I don’t know anything about how her mother is doing.

I only know she has stopped asking where Gillian is.