A Niece's Problem

It was the first weekend in June, I had managed to get a morning shift on the Saturday and get the Sunday off. Josh was happy to hear that I was off on the Sunday because that was the day his family was having the first official ‘family’ BBQ of the summer; everyone was going to be there all Josh’s brothers and sisters, their kids and some of Josh’s other relatives, like his cousin Mark.

Saturday after work, I went home to shower and get ready to spend the night at Josh’s apartment. I was looking forward to spending the rest of the day with him and Jess; we promised Jess we would take him to the playground close to Josh’s place. Jesse wanted to go on the ‘teetot’ as he loves to call the teeter totter (seesaw) and he wanted me to take him down the slide, he said he was not big enough to go by himself.

I walked into my room and was in the process of closing my door when I heard, “Hello Aunt Anna.”

“Holy crap!” I jumped, spinning around to stare at Lindsay who was sitting cross legged on my bed, looking a little sad. “You scared me!” I told her as I held my hand over my chest. She told me she was sorry. “What are you doing in here?”

She shrugged, “I just wanted to get away from everyone, I didn’t know you were coming home today, I thought you were hanging out with Josh and Jesse all day?”

“I just came home to shower and grab some clothes,” I tilted my head as I watched her, I wasn’t used to Lindsay being to quiet. “Lins is something wrong? Where are your sisters?”

“Cassie is in her room with Brenda and Gwen and Nat is upstairs in the living room helping mom with some thing.”

I noticed that she simply avoid my other question. “Why are you hiding down here then?”

“Cassie told me to get lost and there wasn’t anything for me to do with mom and Nat. I thought I would come down here and read,” she pulled one of my romance novels that she was hiding behind her back and showed it to me. “I didn’t think that you would mind Aunt Anna, you told me I could read them in here.”

“I don’t mind Lins but I was wondering why you are down here instead of upstairs with your friends? Where are Michelle and Tara? I thought they were coming over for the night? Or was it next weekend?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Lindsay snapped as she turned on my bed and flopped down on her stomach to read again.

“Oh ok,” I said slowly. “I’m going to go get in the shower,” I told her. “If you change your mind, we can talk when I get out.” I waited a couple minutes but she didn’t say anything other than, ‘yeah sure’.

It bugged me the entire time that I was in the shower, Lindsay wasn’t herself and it was unusual that she wouldn’t want to talk about it or that her friends weren't with her, those girls were normally attached at the hip.

When I got out of the shower, instead of going back into my room, I headed upstairs in my robe pretending that I needed something to drink but I was really going to ask Mary if she knew what was going on.

Mary was in the living room with Nat like Lindsay had said, they were going through a couple envelopes of pictures that Mary had recently developed; Mary was a stickler for organizing her photos into albums right away, “I’ll always know where they are this way,” she would tell Zack whenever he would tell her that she didn’t have to do it. “And besides, this way I can write down what was going on and who everyone is, I’ll never forget!” Zack would tell her she was crazy as he walked away shaking his head.

I asked Mary if she had a minute and we headed off into the kitchen.

“Do you have any idea what’s wrong with Lindsay?” I asked her once she was seated at the table with me. “She’s downstairs in my room reading a romance novel. She seems kind of sad and not like herself. I asked her why and she said she wanted to get away from everyone. I asked her where her friends were because I was certain that they were supposed to be here today and she snapped at me, told me that she didn’t want to talk about it. Is there something wrong?”

Mary seemed surprised by what I was saying, “I don’t know Anna, I thought she was upstairs with Cassie and the girls.” She paused, looking a little ashamed, “I forgot that her friends were supposed to be here today! Oh my God! I’m a bad mother! How could I forget that? I should go and see if she wanted to get them, I think I was supposed to pick them up.”

Mary went to get up but I stopped her. “I think there’s something going on,” I told her. “If you were supposed to pick up her friends, she wouldn’t have let you forget. Do you think they had a fight? Could that be why she seems so sad and lonely?”

“I don’t know,” Mary said once again. “But I think I should find out.” I stood up with Mary and we both walked out of the kitchen together. “Nat I have to go with Anna for a minute, please wait for me before you do anything.”

“Ok mommy,” Nat called happily from the living room, she had the pictures spread out in front of her and she was looking them over, putting them into piles.

Mary and I made our way downstairs to my room. When Mary said Lindsay’s name she jumped up. “I wasn’t doing anything wrong mom, Aunt Anna said I could read in here.”

“I know honey,” Mary went over and joined Lindsay on my bed. “I was just speaking to Anna and she seems to think that there’s something wrong.” Mary brushed back the hair on Lindsay’s forehead while she spoke. “Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?”

I watched them together and it reminded me of all the times, through out the years that Mary sat on my bed, asking me the same thing. I remembered all the anger and tears that Mary helped me through; she was a wonderful woman and I had always hoped that one day I would be like her. Maybe one day I will be.

I listened to Lindsay as she reluctantly told her mom that her friends were had at her. “We had a fight,” she said. “Michelle likes Randy Peters and I think he’s a jerk, I told her that and she told me I was just jealous because he liked her and not me.” Lindsay rolled her eyes as she shook her head. “I don’t care that he likes her mom! I don’t like Randy, he’s mean. He makes fun of people all the time and he is rude to the teachers!”

“But Michelle thinks he’s cute and she wanted to meet with him down by the river today instead of coming here. And she told Tara she would see if his friend, Kale, could go too; Tara likes Kale.”

“So your friends wanted to hang out with boys instead of you?”

“Yes,” Lindsay sighed. “They wanted me to ask if I could go to Michelle’s instead so we could sneak out of her house to meet them but I told them I couldn’t.” Mary asked her why she couldn’t ask, Lindsay’s eyes went wide. “Mom! Dad patrols the area by the river! He would see me and that would be the end of it!”

Mary started to chuckle, “Honey if we knew you were going to be there, it would be ok.”

“No,” Lindsay shook her head. “Dad would make sure to drive by just to embarrass me! And…”

“And what?”

“Well…see…the thing is…Randy and Kale are older than us mom.”

“How much older?” Mary’s smile disappeared.

“18,” Lindsay said softly.

“18?” Mary wasn’t so soft about it. “Your 14 year old friends are sneaking out to meet 18 year olds down by the river?? What the hell are they thinking?” Mary jumped up, “I have to call your father, make sure that he swings by there today.”

“No!” Lindsay jumped off the bed. “Mom! No! If you do that, they’ll know that I told and they won’t talk to me again! Mom please don’t call dad!”