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It’s just shy of three in the morning when C.J.’s phone rings on the nightstand. She reaches over blearily, clumsily pulling it from its place at the bottom of the three-phone stack before the shrill ringtone can wake her bedmates. Nearly sending Toby’s phone tumbling to the floor as she sits up, C.J. swings her legs over the side of the bed and retucks the covers around Andy’s bare shoulders.
The floor is cold even through her socks, the air even more so without the furnace of Andy curled around her. She lets the door of their bedroom shut gently behind her, stepping into the hallway and putting the phone to her ear. The hall is dimly lit by the entryway light.
Molly’s voice filters through the crackly connection, even though she’s meant to be in bed down the hall from their room.
Evidently not, but seventeen is shaping up to be an adventure.
Rubbing sleep out of her eyes, C.J. scrambles to get her wits about her as she tries to process the words over the phone.
“Moll?” C.J. asks, “What’s wrong?”
“You said I could always call,” Molly stammers out.
It’s not the first time Molly has called her needing help, but certainly the first at this time of night. C.J. doesn’t hesitate, her hands going for the car keys on the hook next to the door the moment she’s pulled on the closest coat on the rack, the phone still pressed between her ear and shoulder.
She’s out the front door in the next breath, and she tries to mask her worry with comfort when she speaks next, “Of course, sweetheart. I meant it.”
The tear in Molly’s voice is obvious as she mumbles, the wind whistling over the phone, “Can you pick me up? I’m at the Sanders’.”
C.J. forces herself to gather her composure before she starts the car and clutches in. She only really knows Tommy Sanders as the boy who used to give Huck a hard time in middle school, but she’s heard enough from Molly to know that high school has given him popularity and football. His parents live the better part of a twenty minute drive away, even in the emptiness of the pre-dawn roads, and she white-knuckles it the whole way there.
Never mind the hour, never mind the fact that Molly snuck out. She just wants to make sure her baby girl is safe.
Molly is four doors down, pacing up and down the sidewalk when she pulls onto the street the Sanders live on. It’s not unlike their own neighborhood, but the houses are bigger, the street wider, and the sidewalks smaller.
She drives a little further up the street, then loops around in Molly’s sightline so she doesn’t spook. An abundance of caution makes her put the car in neutral and put the handbrake up before unlocking the passenger side door.
Molly climbs in, and C.J. tries to appraise her wellbeing as completely as she can with just a visual scan. Molly seems shaky but not panicked and the street is absolutely still so C.J. lets the car stay parked before Molly speaks. She wants to reach across the center console and hold Molly and keep her safe the rest of her life, but she holds back. Molly is white-knuckled, gripping the seatbelt she hasn’t fully buckled as if her life depends on it.
She waits, because she knows she has to let Molly come to her or she’ll bolt. If not physically, emotionally.
Molly clicks the seatbelt into its buckle. Her chin juts out just a little. She’s set her shoulders, and her lips are pressed together. C.J. knows better than to prod, so she puts the car in first gear and moves off.
They’re stuck at a red light when Molly finally speaks, her eyes fixed ahead and her voice oddly even, “Thanks for picking me up, Mom.”
“I will always pick you up, Moll,” C.J. assures, “You just gotta call.”
Molly doesn’t crack a smile.
“I’m sorry I snuck out,” Molly begins, her eyes still staring just past the windshield as the light turns green, “And–”
C.J. forces herself to wait when Molly trails off. To not push. She focuses on the road, on the practiced one-two of shifting gears.
“I drank. I know I’m not supposed to, especially not alone with a boy,” Molly admits, “But then I started feeling really weird, and I thought about roofies and panicked. I think the alcohol just hit me faster than I thought it would.”
A weight lifts off C.J.’s chest, and she internally curses John Hoynes for her mind immediately imagining the worst.
“I’m just glad you’re safe, Molly, and that you called when you needed help,” C.J. assures, keeping her voice steady as she continues, “I’m not thrilled about what you did, but high school is a messy, difficult time to always be making the right choices. You’re going to need to tell your Momma and Dad, but that can wait until you’ve had rest.”
She sees Molly nod out of the corner of her eye, and her chin lower as she lets her gaze fall to her lap. The fight goes out of her, and all C.J. sees is her exhausted little girl.
The rest of the drive is quiet.
She locks the door quietly behind them and turns off the entryway light. Dawn will break soon, but she tucks Molly in tight once she’s clad in soft flannel pajamas. She reminds Molly that she loves her, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head and leaving the door open a crack the way she did for years and years.
She hears the quiet thanks as she leaves, and Molly’s shy murmur of “love you, Mommy”.
Knowing better than to try to sneak into bed, C.J. settles into the overstuffed armchair in the living room for a quick nap, hoping her habit of waking earlier than both her partners will keep their daughter’s secret until Molly can admit to her mistakes herself.
The commotion when she is jolted awake just over an hour later tells her that hope was fruitless.
Andy and Toby are two feet away, squabbling over whether to wake her. She finds her bearings and stands, just to make the noise stop.
Toby is red in the face, already more than angry enough at the prospect of whatever has gone wrong. His questions come, and they come fast, pointed, and furious. Andy tries to rein him back, tries to play the mediator in spite of her own worry, but his determination burns through hers.
“You want to explain yourself, C.J.?” Toby finally lands at the end of his spiel.
She bites her tongue until she can formulate a calm response, even when every passing moment between words discomfits Toby.
“She called when she needed help, just like we’ve always made her promise,” C.J. defends, “She knows she messed up, Toby. Molly will explain when she gets up, but she needs some rest.”
He rubs his hand over his face, his anger sputtering out of him, “That wasn’t a decision you get to unilaterally make.”
“There wasn’t a decision, Toby. She hasn’t been disciplined. She knows she needs to sit down with all three of us,” C.J. tries to reason, “I didn’t make any decisions. I just got our daughter back home in one piece.”
“Our daughter.”
Toby’s tongue wraps around those two simple words in a way that sends a current of acrid discomfort through every nerve ending in C.J.’s body. His tone says more than his words do, but the blow lands just the same.
Andy’s eyes are wide, her hand still poised to hold Toby’s anger back.
C.J. just tries to blow past it.
“I’m going to pretend for all our sakes that you didn’t just say that, Tobias,” C.J. grinds out. She turns away from them, moving towards the kitchen to start the coffeemaker and get breakfast on the stove. Their Saturday is starting out rougher than anyone would like, and the last thing she wanted was to go through it on not enough sleep, an empty stomach, and no caffeine in her system.
Molly has had her share of tough moments and less than stellar choices, especially after starting high school. The scrutiny is only worsened by Huck’s textbook good boy behavior, and C.J. cannot find it in herself to blame either of them. Especially when Molly is rarely callous, hardly unkind, just careless with herself in ways the rest of the family cannot wrap their heads around.
Toby thinks his daughter is reckless. Andy worries. C.J. just sees a funhouse mirror into her past.
The anger she left in the living room trails after her into the kitchen, Andy hot on Toby’s heels. It isn’t long before Huck is woken by the commotion. When Molly creeps in, dark circles under her eyes and shame in her gait, the eggs and waffles are on the table and coffee is in the pot. C.J.’s lips are still pursed, her silence unlifted as they sit down to breakfast.
She sees Toby draw in a heavy breath, then Andy’s hand land firmly on his arm before he can use it, her tone brooking no argument, “Eat first.”
Toby shifts in his seat, discomfited. Huck clears out quick as anything, his breakfast shoveled into his mouth and his empty plate in the sink. Andy cuts methodical bites out of her waffles, one divot at a time, and dips each piece in syrup.
Her own plate sits half full, her eggs going cold.
The first words out of Toby’s mouth hang in the narrow space between Molly’s last bite and the clatter of her utensils on the newly empty plate.
“When are you going to grow up, Molly?” Toby starts, hackles already up, “You’re old enough to know better.”
“Dad–”
“You better have a damn good explanation for sneaking out,” He continues.
“Dad–”
“It’s the last damn straw, Molly. You’ve had enough strikes this past year,” Toby ranted, relentless.
“Daddy, please–”
“Why can’t you be just a little more like your brother?” He finally lands.
Molly stands so quickly her chair scrapes deafeningly against the kitchen tile. She dumps her plate in the sink on her way out of the kitchen, silent tears already tracking down her face.
She looks just to the left of Toby as she breaks her silence. She needs to, or she won’t keep her cool, and that would help no one, especially not Molly.
“Toby, you’ve spent your life running away from your father’s mistakes. Andy’s spent her life running towards the chance to make a change. Molly and I, well, we spend our lives running in place, running out the clock we know is ticking, and that makes us do things in ways you find ridiculous,” She takes a moment to catch her breath, her voice shaking when she continues, “She’s seventeen, and she already thinks she’s on a deadline. I don’t want to lose her, and I’m damn sure none of us do. She’s going to make choices you hate, and she’s going to learn from them. Some lessons will be harder than others, and she makes the bed she lies in, but isn’t our job to make sure she makes it through the hard part, not make it harder for her when she already feels like she’s drowning?”
She doesn’t realize she’s in tears until Andy rounds the table and wipes them away with the pad of her thumb. Andy’s arms are around her in an instant, her entire world shrunken down to the warm steadiness of one of her safe places.
She lets Andy put Toby to the task of clearing the table and washing up. Her feet carry her back to the armchair as Andy knocks on Molly’s door and enters quietly. Her head is heavy in her hands, but the conversation behind Molly’s door is measured and calm as far as she can tell. She can hear the heaviness of Toby’s footsteps, the running then stopping of the water as he finishes the dishes. She hears the refrigerator shut as the leftover waffles are put away.
Then, he’s beside her. His hands are gentle where they hold her chin and cheek, his eyes soft with apology and regret. Later, he will mend fences with his daughter, but first he holds her as she lets him repair the trust he’s threatened to break. A lifetime ago this would have shaken her, but she’s decades away from the years when she thought she was running out a limited clock, and secure enough in her place in this family to know better than to heed his anger.
His tongue has always worked faster than his mind under duress, as they both well know.
“I will always go when either of them calls,” C.J. states plainly, “I made that promise the day they were born. Not even you can change my mind on that.”
He just nods against the crown of her head, his arms still around her.