Please Hold

I’m on the phone with my boyfriend, who’s sending me videos of people whose cars skidded off the interstate and exploded in the middle of last night’s snowstorm. This immediately reminds me of someone.

I hang up the phone to call my mom, who’s so defiantly old school that she reclassifies her ways as progression. Despite being my emergency contact, she never answers her phone.

Now is no exception. The answering machine asks me to please leave my message. It, at least, is programmed to be polite.

I dial my little sister, Carina, next, who doesn’t answer the phone because she’s too busy stealing my room. I’m currently house-sitting for my ex-boss, who went to Austin, Texas, and left me here to prevent her pipes from exploding.

Every time I temporarily move into her house, Carina borrows my room. This is because, after my parents’ millionth fight, my mom finally kicked my dad out of their bedroom. He slept on the living room couch the first night. On the next, Carina went to her room to go to sleep only to find my dad passed out in her bed. When she complained to my mom about this, my mom told Carina to just sleep in my parents’ bed with her for the night. This has been going on for the past four years.

After Carina’s voicemail prods me to “please leave a message,” I call my little brother, Christian. He’s constantly on his phone to self-medicate for his ADHD, which my parents have let go undiagnosed due to their extreme personal/religious/financial aversion for prescription medication and/or therapy.

Christian picks up instantly. “Hello?”

“Hey, is everyone home?”

“Yeah.”

“Put Mom on the phone, please.”

He sighs as he gets up, muttering about how she never answers her phone even as he passes it to her.

“Hi, sweet girl,” my mom’s voice sounds over my little brother’s phone.

“Hey. Is everybody home?”

“Yes, everyone’s home,” she reports, like she’s turning in a roll-call sheet.

“You guys know not to go out for the next two days, right?”

My mom’s sigh is immediate. “Let me put your father on the phone.”

His is the next voice. “Hello?”

“Hey, Dad. You’re gonna stay home for the next two days, right?”

“Probably not.”

“Dad–”

“I have things I need to do and places I need to be.”

“Dad, do not go outside for the next two days, especially not in Mom’s car. There’s a city-wide emergency shutdown.”

He hangs up.

I’m left, phone in hand, in a house that’s empty.

I call my mom. It’s somehow to my indignation that she doesn’t pick up. A part of me is tempted to throw my phone across the room, but I re-dial my little brother’s phone number instead.

“Put Mom back on the phone.”

“Oh, God.” His muttering is much louder this time.

“Why don’t you ever have your phone on you?” He snaps at my mom. I’m being held hostage to eavesdrop on what their arguments are like without me.

“I don’t know,” she laughs as if this isn’t a choice she’s consciously made for the past twenty years.

Her voice gets closer.

“Hi, sweet girl,” she greets again.

“Mom,” I order. “Do not let that man take your car outside. Do not let him go out, period.”

My dad got his driver’s license last year. His car exploded on New Year’s Eve two years ago, but he’s been “borrowing” my mom’s car long before that. He got his driver’s license the day after my twenty-third birthday. The night of my birthday, he drove us downtown to dinner. My mom sat in the backseat of her own car.

“I’m getting my license tomorrow, Cosy,” he announced, gripping the wheel. “Then I’ll be your real Uber driver.”

I nodded along. “You know you can’t freak out your instructor, right?”

“I know that,” he defended.

“That means no randomly swerving into other people’s lanes and trying to scare them or screaming at the other drivers.”

“I’m a great driver,” he reported. “A great Uber driver. When I get my license tomorrow, I could start being a real Uber driver. I could pick people up and drive them around. I could even do food delivery, like the people Colin orders from.”

“You don’t have a car,” I reminded him.

He works as a DoorDasher now.

“Mom,” I repeat over the phone. “There’s a city-wide shutdown, which means if he uses your car to do some stupid shit, there’s gonna be no one to save him from it.”

Silently, my mom processes the threat of her husband doing stupid shit with her car, which is much more effective than the threat of him dying. He’s only had unlimited access to her car for the past six months, but he’s already brought it back dented and with parts falling off even on a normal day.

“Okay. Thank you for telling me that.”

“You’re welcome.” This time, I’m the one who hangs up.

My phone vibrates.

I roll my eyes, but it’s my little sister who’s calling me back. “Hey,” she greets me coldly. “What did you want?”

It’s a bold question coming from the person who’s stealing my room. “Hey,” I say back anyway. “Everyone’s home, right?”

“Yeah,” she responds. I don’t know whether she’s matching the annoyance in my tone or igniting it.

“Is Colin going to work?”

“I don’t know.”

“Put him on the phone.”

She sighs. This is followed by shuffling.

“Cose wants to talk to you,” I hear her relay.

“Why does Cose want to talk to me?” My older brother mumbles before officially picking up. “Yeah?”

“Hey. You don’t have work today, right?” He typically works the Sunday night shift, so I’m hoping the weather has shut that down. At a restaurant job, though, there’s no telling.

“No, not tonight.”

“Okay, good,” I say before I add, “Make sure Dad doesn’t go anywhere.”

“I’m not gonna stop him.”

“Colin.”

“You’re not my parent,” he lectures me. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

“Don’t let him go out,” I repeat, now officially a broken record. “Especially with Mom’s car. The city is going to completely shut down, so if he gets himself in trouble, there’s no one who’s going to be able to rescue him.”

“Since when do you care about Dad?” Colin snaps.

I’m at a loss for words, left to imagine my dad’s despondent voice. I know I’ve done some things, but . . . they don’t even treat me like I’m human, he’d once said. About us.

“Just don’t let him go out,” I snap. When I hang up, I toss my phone aside and look up. I’m completely alone in a dimly-lit house. There isn’t even a dog.

My phone buzzes. I turn it around, scanning the caller ID: Mom. She actually went and found her phone for this, so it must be really important.

“Hi, Mom. What’s up?”

“Hi, sweet girl. I just wanted to ask ‘cause I’m looking online. Can you send me a source saying that the city’s being shut down for the next two days?”