Page 84 of Safe With You

This was ridiculous.

They were pictures for the website, not a magazine spread.

I picked up the cream blouse.

Put it down.

Picked up the green one.

Put that down too.

My phone rang from the nightstand before I could make another decision I would immediately reverse.

Mom.

I grabbed it and answered.

“Hey, Mama.”

“Good morning. You busy?”

I looked down at the towel wrapped around me, then at the four shirts spread across my bed.

“Depends on your definition.”

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to get dressed.”

“At almost eight o’clock?”

“I’ve been up.”

“I didn’t say you hadn’t been up. I asked why you weren’t dressed.”

I smiled and put her on speaker before setting the phone on my dresser.

“Did you call to check on me or monitor my morning routine?”

“I called because I hadn’t talked to you yesterday.”

“You talked to me Sunday.”

“And today is Tuesday.”

I shook my head.

“How are you?”

“I’m fine. Your daddy has been outside messing with that grill since seven this morning.”

“The same grill he was supposed to clean last week?”

“The very one.”

I laughed and started returning shirts to my closet while she told me he’d ordered some new attachment he apparently needed despite having used the grill perfectly well without it for years.

That led to her telling me about a package she’d been waiting on, which led to my aunt, which somehow became a story about somebody from church I hadn’t seen since I was seventeen.