Save My Soul

Staccato Heart [9]

9.

When Lillian drops me off at the theater, she asks if I'll need a ride home later on and I say no, that I'll just get Danny – one of my coworkers – to take me.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, Danny doesn't care."

"Well, what time do you get off?"

"Eight o' clock."

Lillian shakes her head. "So late?"

I shrug. "It's no big deal."

"Well, please call me if you can't get a ride. I'll just jump back in the van and come pick you up."

"Alright... oh, and thanks," I add, shyly. "For the ride and everything. You didn't have to."

She leans over, pecking my cheek. "You be good. I'll see you later. You have my number?"

"No, it's at home."

"Well here." She tears a scrap of paper from a little notepad that she gets from her purse and scribbles down her number. "I'm putting down Jamie's too, in case you can't reach me. That alright, Jamie?"

"Yeah."

"Here, Lizzie. We'll see you later, alright? Say bye to Lizzie, girls," she says, looking over her shoulder. I glance back to see Lilly sucking placidly on a sippy cup in her seat on the far right, and Katie entirely immersed in a cloth book in her seat in the middle. Lily waves, but Katie can't be bothered. I smile.

"Bye, Lilly. Uh, Katie...?"

She looks up a few seconds later and stares at me. "I weading. Go way."

"Katie!" Lillian cries, but I crack up.

"Yes, ma'am," I say back at her and she looks a little confused, looking from Lillian's foreboding face to my smiling one.

"Mama...?" she says slowly.

"Katie, you say sorry to Lizzie right now! That is no way to treat your new friend."

She stares for another moment at her mother and then looks at me, wide-eyed. Slowly, her eyes well up with tears, Dropping the book, she covers her face with two chubby, little hands and begins sobbing.

"I sowwy, Lissie, I sowwy, Mama..."

I look at Lillian. The corner of her mouth is twitching.

"That's alright, Katie. But no more of that rude stuff. You hear me?"

"Yes, Mama, I sowwy..." she wails.

Tongue-tied, I sit for a moment, not knowing what to do. Her wails continue for another minute or so and I look back at her, feeling my chest tighten. She sounds so woebegone. Her face is pink and I see tears streaking down from beneath her hands. Unable to stand leaving her like that, I loosen my seatbelt, twist around in the seat, and lean across the back to take her little hands in mine, pulling them from her face.

"Hey," I say and she sobs in response, her wet eyelashes lifting for a moment to fix on me before she hiccups. "Hey, it's alright... don't cry."

"Mama said to be so-sowwy."

"I know, but you are... What book were you reading?"

"Th-this one," she hiccups, holding up the little book. Alphabet letters.

"Wow, Katie, you can read that? You're so smart."

She sniffs loudly and scrubs her fist across her face, smearing her tears with it. "I can wead my letters... see, dat's A... and dat's B..." I nod and use my thumb to wipe beneath her eye. "And dat's C."