Free What Came First by Carol Snow Page A

any of them. Mike explained, “I’d really like to have you and Ian there, but if I invite you, I’ve got to invite Mom and Dad.” Having been seated between my silent, seething parents at the first two weddings, I considered my exclusion to be a reprieve.
    My mother and stepfather visit once or twice a year, usually on their way to someplace more interesting. My mother has asked Ian, her only grandchild, to call her Nancy “because Grandma sounds so old.” My father has met Ian twice. At my stepmother’s invitation, we flew out to Reno shortly after Ian’s birth and didn’t see them again until Mike’s second wedding. When we said good-bye, my father shook Ian’s hand.
    “Who was that again?” Ian whispered once my father walked away.
    Ian shows considerably more enthusiasm for his uncle Mike—as do I. We usually see him once or twice a year, either because he’s visiting a nearby university or because he’s between women and doesn’t want to spend Christmas alone. Not surprisingly for someone who racks up wives so easily, Mike is warm, handsome, and charming. He’ll talk to Ian for hours on end about whales, stars, Star Wars, or whatever else Ian is consumed with at any given time. Once Ian goes to bed, we’ll laugh and talk for hours, trading crazy-parent stories and dour childhood memories that only we two can appreciate.
    Every time Mike says good-bye, we promise to see each other more often. But life gets in the way. Or, more often, a wife gets in the way. Still, it’s a comfort to me, just knowing Mike is out there.

    Friday afternoon, I leave the office at 5:01 and pull into my driveway thirty-seven minutes later. The weekend stretches ahead, long, lazy—and wet. A storm is expected to roll in this evening, with rain forecast through Sunday. I don’t mind one bit. Ian has a basketball game tomorrow afternoon, a piano lesson on Sunday. Otherwise, we have nothing to do but make popcorn, watch movies, and feed the chickens. Bliss.
    The house smells like cheese and tomatoes and cumin. A casserole, something Mexican, bubbles in the oven. Sometimes Carmen makes dishes we can eat through the weekend. I’m never sure whether she disapproves of my dependence on takeout or whether she can’t bear the thought of us going two whole days without tasting her food. Probably a little of both.
    A padded envelope sits on the kitchen island, surrounded by the rest of the day’s mail. I drop my handbag on the counter, pick up the envelope, check the return address: Helix Laboratories. My pulse quickens.
    I leave the envelope on the island and head down the hall. Carmen is in my bedroom, putting away laundry.
    “Something smells delicious.”
    “Chicken enchilada casserole. Ian say he want it. But now he say he no home for dinner.”
    “What?”
    Carmen closes a dresser drawer. The room smells like lemon polish. “Alex’s mom, she call you?”
    “No.”
    “She call, say tonight is birthday party for Alex. Sleepover.”
    “Tonight?”
    Ian appears in the doorway, a duffel bag slung over one shoulder, a sleeping back over the other. “Mom, we gotta go. The party started already. And we need to get a present for Alex.”
    “But . . . what . . .”
    “At school today, Alex asked if I was coming to his birthday party. He said he gave me an invitation, but he didn’t.”
    “Isn’t Alex the one who makes fart noises during class? I thought you didn’t like him.”
    “That’s Axel, not Alex. Alex is cool. Mom, we really gotta go.”
    “But, but . . . I thought you didn’t like sleepovers. Remember that time you stayed over at Kevin’s house? And his mom called me at midnight to get you because you were scared?” In all my life, I’ve never been so happy to be called at midnight.
    “I wasn’t scared. There were all these crickets in a cage for his lizards, and the crickets made so much noise I couldn’t sleep. Mom, we have to go !”
    Disappointment makes my stomach hurt. There will be no dinner