I called my dad on Wednesday at 2:14 PM. I know the time because I'd just put Gracie down with a math worksheet she was going to ignore for at least fifteen minutes, and I had a window.
I called to check on my mom.
I hung up at 2:37. I'd asked about her once, near the beginning. He said she was about the same. Then he started telling me about a chicken and rice thing he was trying to figure out — something his sister used to make, and he can't remember if there's supposed to be cream of mushroom in it or cream of chicken, and Mom says she doesn't care but he wants to get it right.
He talked about the casserole for somewhere between eight and eleven minutes. I'm guessing because I wasn't watching the clock. I was just listening.
I asked him what brand of rice he was using. I asked if he wanted me to text him the recipe my mother-in-law makes, which is similar. I told him about the time I tried to make it with brown rice and produced something with the consistency of wet concrete. He laughed.
When I hung up, I sat there for a minute. Then I went and got Gracie, who had drawn a horse on the back of her math worksheet and done exactly two problems on the front.
Here's the thing I noticed.
I didn't call to check on my mom. I mean — I did. That was the official reason. That's what I would have said if Lucas had walked in and asked who I was talking to. Just calling to check on Mom.
But I haven't called to check on my mom in months. I've been calling to check on my dad.
He's the one doing the work. He's running her medications. He's driving her to appointments. He's figuring out what she'll eat on the days nothing sounds good. He's making the casserole because she said she doesn't care what's for dinner, which means she does care, and he knows it, and he's trying.
He doesn't complain. He doesn't say I'm tired. He says I'm trying to get the casserole right.
And I call, and I ask about her, and then I let him talk about whatever he wants to talk about for as long as he wants, because that's the only break he gets all week. My mom isn't up for long calls anymore. He doesn't go anywhere. The mailman is sometimes a major event in his day.
He gets twenty-three minutes with his daughter to figure out a casserole out loud, and that's what I'm there for. That's the call. The check-in on Mom is the cover story. The cover story is for both of us — it gives him a reason he's allowed to talk to me, and it gives me a reason I'm allowed to call.
I'm not sure when this started. Some point last year, I think. I just slid into it.
I don't know if he knows. I think he probably does, in the way you know things you've decided not to look at directly. He knows I'm checking on him. He's letting me. We're not naming it. Naming it would change what it is.
Anyway. The casserole is going to have cream of chicken in it. We decided. He's making it Friday.
I didn't get back to Gracie's math. She drew a second horse.
I don't have a takeaway here. I just wanted to write it down because I noticed it, and most of the things I notice in my own life I don't have time to notice until I'm typing them out at someone.
If you have a parent who's caring for the other parent, you probably know what I'm talking about. The phone call that's officially about one of them and is actually about the other one. The way the cover story protects everybody.
If you don't, this won't make much sense. That's okay too.