Page 123 of ClickBack

His co-host Deuce told him to stop. The other one, Carl, said his mother had a little house and two cats. She had also buried a husband and raised three children in it. Martin tried to laugh his way out, but Carl kept talking until the producer cut to an ad.

I appreciated Carl. I still called Martin.

He answered like we were friends. That lasted about four seconds.

Now my mother has called twice, and I have managed to miss both calls while finding time to curse out somebody on a podcast. I call her from the road and tell her I’m coming down.

“Are you close?” she asks.

“About an hour.”

“All right. Park behind me. Mr. Bell has somebody coming for that car.”

Mr. Bell has had somebody coming for that car since I was in college. When I turn onto the block, it is still under the same gray cover, and a boy on a bicycle is cutting across the empty space in front of it. He brakes when he sees me, recognizes the car before he recognizes me, then lifts one hand.

I lift mine back and park behind Mom.

She opens the door wearing wide-leg jeans and a sleeveless top, her hair caught up in a clip. She hugs me without saying anything. I bend into it and stay there until she pats my back.

“Let me close the door. You’re giving the air away.”

Inside, her tablet is open on the dining table beside a yellow legal pad. Somebody has drawn circles across a floor plan and written names inside them. Her phone is on speaker.

“I’m telling you, Denise, you cannot put them next to each other.”

My mother picks up the phone. “My son just got here. I’ll call you back.”

“Which one?”

“The one standing in my doorway.”

“Tell Jarrett I said hello.”

She ends the call and looks at me. “They are wearing me out.”

“Who’s fighting?”

“Nobody yet. That’s what I’m trying to prevent.”

She is helping plan a retirement dinner for a woman who has known me since I was small. The honoree wants a band. The committee wants a DJ. Two women refuse to sit together, and both have asked to be near the honoree.

“Put them outside,” I tell her.

“Then they’d agree on something. Me.”

She sets the pad aside and goes into the kitchen. I follow because the house smells like smothered chicken, and for the first time since Thursday I remember being hungry.

There is a plate ready for me, rice under the gravy, greens on the side. Mom carries her own to the table and sits across from me. She takes the first bite. I take mine, and we eat without discussing the reason I drove down.

My phone lights beside the plate. Von has sent a picture of his championship hat sitting next to the television remote. He keeps finding places for it, then sending proof. I turn the screen toward Mom.

“He put it on during our call yesterday,” she says. “To answer a question about his lease.”

“He’s going to wear that shit in the shower.”

“Probably already has.”

I type back, You can put it away now. Von sends the same picture closer up.