“No! Mom, you don’t need to come over here to work. I said I’d get it. I’m not going to die just because I didn’t take the trash out.” “Riley, there’s spaghetti sauce stuck to your wall.” Crap. “I can explain that,” I offer. “I…dropped a can of sauce, and it splattered on the wall. That’s why Rob and I have a pizza coming any minute. We got to talking, and then you showed up before we could clean it.” There’s silence as her blurry brown hair remains still in my field of vision. “It’s fossilized,” she emphasizes. “It’s…this new quick drying sauce they have. We’ve got it handled,” I assure her,
...more
