Friday

So now they are coming on "Friday," whatever Friday really means, perhaps the day after tomorrow. Or perhaps they checked the forecast and saw the chance for snow.

"Okay, we'd be glad to see you."

"I know you don't believe me."

"Well, I know you mean it when you say it, but whatever day you tell me, in the end you're never here. "

"I want to come," she insists.

"Just you?"

"No, I ask him and he wants to come, too." The baby is fussing in the background; I count back and recall: she'll be four months old on Monday.

"Well, good."

She sounds surprised every time we have this conversation, as if saying that she wants to come should have magically transported her here. And we always wind around to the same follow-up question, "Ms. P, are you gonna be mad?"

It's almost a dare, from the girl who has always looked both for an excuse and for her adults to fail her, the remains of her see-this-chip-knock-it-off strategy, a guaranteed exit from a difficult path, but now I hear "please do be" and "please don't be" at once. Last time she left us, before she admitted this ambivalence, she stomped off to Florida, found her boy, soon enough made her baby in the first purposeful act of her life. What's done so definitely done. So, no, I'm not gonna be mad; I'm way past, regardless. It's time to salvage whatever we can.

"Look, every day you don't come, it gets harder to come back. And every day you don't come, it gets harder for you to pass. But when you come back, I'll be glad to see you. All we can do is talk to the office and find out what we can do."

"On Friday?"

"Sure, on Friday."

"Okay, thank you."

"Okay."