Episode 1249: Tremors

She sent a text to her husband, letting him know she’d pick up Miranda in thirty-five minutes.

She and Ryley had talked at length over the phone at lunch. Both kids had eaten a normal portion of pancakes for breakfast, seemed in decent spirits, but when it came to the proposition of day camp, Russell had been very clingy with his dad, refusing to go, whereas Miranda had verged on tears at the suggestion that she stay home, too, if anything, she’d been overeager to join her friends in the park.

When Ryley opened that call, there had been noticeable voice cracking worry on his end of the line, and Adria would be a liar if she didn’t admit she’d momentarily felt something similar. She’d calmed herself down though nearly as quickly though, reasoning it all out.

Russell was a clingy kid to begin with, and in the two weeks he’d been attending day camp, there had been at least seven occasions where Russ had tried to beg off hanging with his fellow littles and instead accompany one parent or the other to work.

He was still such a young guy, this could just as easily be a phase Russ was already in and nothing to do with the attempted armed robbery. As for Miranda, she wasn’t dwelling on what happened, she was insisting on getting right back into the swing of things, was that really something to be leery of or something that should be taken as a good sign?

Maybe that was just the right path for Adria and her kids, for some people her mom’s medical interventions were necessary, just not for them. They were all going to be fine. If they didn’t make a big deal of what had happened, surely it would recess to the back of their minds where all near misses like fumbled robberies and earthquake tremors that amounted to nothing, belonged.

Ryley wasn’t quite as on board with this ignore it until it goes away approach, but sooner than later, he would come around. Like this afternoon, when Adria picked up their family’s favorite ice cream on the way home, the smiles on the kids faces would prove that the scars from the day before didn’t run that deep.

Episode 1250: Like It Never Happened