I Have the Answer by Kelly Fordon

Author:Kelly Fordon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC029000 Fiction / Short Stories (single Author), FIC019000 Fiction / Literary, FIC045000 Fiction / Family Life
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
Published: 2020-04-06T16:00:00+00:00

Evie still didn’t move. Sharon got out of the car and hurried over. She leaned into the driver’s side window. “I will come back for your car. Grab your purse.”

“Absolutely,” Evie said, reaching for her purse. “But what about the baby? It’s right over there.” She pointed outside the passenger side window.

Sharon looked over at the sidewalk.

The parolees were almost upon them, making their way up the right side of the road collecting trash with their long-handled grabbers. The sidewalks were an inch deep with detritus because the city had started shutting off services, forcing people to move downtown so that they could further shut off services to the outlying neighborhoods. Sharon scanned the weeds: a black trash bag, a Chiquita banana box, a striped hobo bag, a large box stuffed with newspapers, a dead houseplant. No baby, of course.

“What did I tell you? You don’t see that every day,” Evie said pointing.

“Evie, it’s just trash.”

“I bet it’s the baby.” Evie marched over to the trash pile.

Sharon could just envision Evie crawling on the ground. She hurried after her and put a hand on Evie’s arm.

“Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll call 9-1-1 on the way home. There’s nothing else to be done if the baby is dead.”

“Is that what the world has come to? Mothers dumping babies on the sidewalk?” Evie asked as Sharon took her arm and steered her toward the car.

“It is a crying shame.” Sharon bit her lip to keep from adding something snide about Evie’s lifelong disdain for children. Once, during Sharon and Phil’s rough patch, Sharon had told Evie she’d hired a babysitter so she and Phil could rekindle the flame. They were both so burned out by Tyler (God love him) that Pastor Rich had pronounced the vacation crucial.

“I don’t get it. Why do you need a babysitter for an eighteen-year-old?” Evie had said. “Is he really that slow?”

It had taken Sharon a long time to get over that comment. Was she even over it now? Despite the fact that the principal at Ridgeton was “sure” that Tyler would “optimize his full potential” if they paid $35,000 a year in tuition, it turned out they had wildly different calculations about his potential.

•

When they were sitting down to dinner that night, Sharon told Phil she’d had another incident with Evie.

“Can’t say I’m surprised.” Phil passed her a container of curry noodles and unpacked his own pad thai. One of the things Sharon loved about Phil was that he relished the routine of Meatloaf Monday, Thai Thursday, and Stew Sunday as much as she did.

The phone rang. Phil set his chopsticks down and got up to answer it.

“Hello, Pastor!” he bellowed into the phone.

Phil always greeted Pastor Rich with the enthusiasm most people reserve for long-lost relatives. Pastor Rich had been Phil’s BFF ever since he’d steered them through their marital quagmire. His advice had centered on acknowledging the different languages of love—Sharon’s “acts of service,” Phil’s “physical touch,” and of course Tyler’s language, which wasn’t in the book but which Pastor Rich called “ask and ye shall receive.

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