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Anya’s seven hours into her shift and two minutes out from her break ending when her phone buzzes gratingly along the metal interior of her locker. She pulls it out, reads ‘Incoming Call: Curly’, and sets it back down. She’s halfway through tying her hair back up when it buzzes again, displaying the same message but somehow with more urgency through repetition. There’s only one reason he could be calling her twice in a row. “Sorry, I need a few to take this,” she tells her admin, “it’s my kid.”
She shrugs on her winter coat and steps out back, slotting the device between her shoulder and ear to keep her hands contained within the padded warmth of her pockets. “Grant?” She used to call him Curly just like everyone else, once upon a time. She never got around to updating his contact information.
“Hi, Anya,” he breathes such warmth into her name she has to close her eyes against it. It's like pressing her fingers to an active burner compared to the bite of the cold outside. “I thought I should be the one to call you.”
She knows Jacob’s not hurt just from the tone of his voice, but she wishes he would get on with it. His attempted diplomacy often lends itself to inefficiency, this song and dance routine of niceties like their relationship is somehow still friendly. “What is it?”
“Ah, my parents invited us all to their place in Seattle for Christmas, and I thought it’d be, well, prudent to get your permission before we accepted.”
Anya stares at one of the street lights adorning the parking lot until there’s dots swimming in her vision. “Grant, that’s--” She blinks, hard, and rubs her thumb against the crinkle forming between her brows. “You need my permission to take him out of state, it’s not a matter of what’s prudent. ” She breathes, trying to sort through one hundred thoughts at once. “It’s confusing him. You know that, right? It’s, I don’t care what you two get up to,” well, she does, but not for the reasons Curly seems to think she does, “but I don’t know how to explain to him why his father’s friend is over all the time, or why Uncle Curly isn’t really appropriate, or why he’d be going to see your parents for Christmas. I wish,” she thinks about the young man she stitched up after a bar fight two hours ago, how he had drunkenly explained to her that another patron had challenged his manhood so of course he had to fight him , “I wish you two would figure this out, for his sake, if nothing else.”
Curly’s silent on the other side of the line for a few moments. When he speaks again, his voice is a little shaky, as if he’s not sure to do with the departure from the script he’d formulated in his own mind. She wishes she didn’t feel so vindicated by his clear discomfort. “Well, you know, that’s not really up to me. I don’t want to overstep.” As if footing the bill for Jimmy’s family law attorney while pretending to be a neutral party isn’t overstepping. She could say that, but she doesn’t--they’ve had this same argument before and it doesn’t go anywhere. He’ll just claim he’s trying to do what’s best for Jacob, like he somehow is the only person who could possibly know what that is.
“She’s not agreeing?”
She can hear his voice somewhere in the background of the call--the quick, clipped syllables burrowing under her skin like a fungal infection.
“Give me a second, Jimmy--” Curly’s voice is muffled, too, like he’s set the phone against his chest.
There’s the sound of fumbling, of hands going for the phone at the same time, and then his voice is suddenly clearer--sharp like a knife in a sink full of soapy water. “What’s your problem? It’s my time with him anyways, it doesn’t make any difference to you whether it’s here or in Seattle.”
“Is he there right now?” She asks, because this isn’t a conversation that should be in front of their son. The parenting plan expressly prohibits anything less than cordial in his presence, and she can already see the direction this is going to go.
A pause. “It’s fucking eleven at night, Anya ,” he says her name as if it’s an insult. If she was standing in front of him, she believes she would be able to keep it together, keep the impact of it from showing in her expression out of necessity, but in the privacy of the night, she winces against the cut of it. “I know you think I’m some terrible father, but he’s in bed.” There’s the familiar anger, simmering under the surface, somehow a threat even over the safety of the phone. “I could’ve-- I should’ve just taken him and you wouldn’t have even known. Christ, why do you always make everything so difficult?”
You didn’t even want custody until you found out how much your child support was going to be without it. It’s always there, perched on the tip of her tongue like a bird about to take flight. It’s never worth the fallout. “Can you put Grant back on?” She asks, instead.
“No, we’re not fucking done--”
We’re not fucking done .
“Jacob can go,” she says it too fast, and hopes he doesn’t recognize it as a sign of weakness. She has to ball her hands into fists just to stop them from shaking. She feels ill, nausea clutching at her stomach. “Just, put Grant back on.” She doesn’t know how Curly became the intermediary for them. She knows it just encourages him, makes him feel like he’s an involved party to these decisions, but for whatever reason she continues to allow it. Maybe she hasn’t grown as much as she thinks she has. Maybe she’s still the same woman, all these years later, who went to Curly for help and actually expected something from him.
There’s no goodbye. A few seconds later, Curly’s back, sounding guilty and cowed. “You’re giving your permission?” She wonders if it’s a performance, and if so, whose benefit it’s for. She might’ve thought it was for her, but she remembers Jimmy criticizing him once: you won’t make a choice until you’ve made sure you can still frame yourself as the hero in your mind . Curly’s expression had stayed with her--stricken, like Jimmy had sunk his teeth into the soft give of his exposed neck. Maybe it is that simple, after all. Maybe Curly sounds sympathetic because he believes that’s how a good guy would sound in this situation. Maybe the way Jimmy speaks to her doesn’t bother him any longer than the time it takes to finish the phone call.
“Yes.” Her nose is starting to go numb and her lips are chapped. “You heard him. He’d just take him anyways.”
“Oh, Anya,” he says, gently. “You know I wouldn’t let him do that.”
She knows Curly has no real ability to deny Jimmy anything, and hopes her lack of response to the sentiment conveys as much. “I need you to send me the address, and your parent’s phone numbers. The itinerary information, too.”
“Of course.” Equal parts relief and excitement underline his words. He’s happy to be taking Jacob to his parents, and that fact needles at her, somehow. She thought she remembered Curly’s relationship being strained with his family, or at least that was the case back when they were still working together. Maybe the appearance of the closest thing they’re going to get to a grandson smoothed it over. When she closes her eyes, she can imagine the scene perfectly: the three of them in matching sweaters that Curly picked out, opening presents from under a real tree. It’ll probably be on the Christmas card next year. “Anything you need, Anya.”
Anything.
Anything.
She knows what his ‘anything’s are worth.