Every Week

Every Week  (239)

Jessie slips through the door, slings her bag onto the floor, and leans over the chair to kiss her dad.

"I can only stay a minute," she says deliberately.  Every week she sets up her departure when she arrives.

Willie watches with a slight smile as his youngest begins her bustle around his room. She folds a shirt.  She straightens some books  Every week she keeps herself very busy.

"The staff says your pestering Mr Phelps again about his running a crooked auto dealership." She turns and looks at him disapprovingly.  "Come on, Dad, that was twenty years ago. I need you to give it a rest."  Every week she scolds him for not getting along.

"Eleanor dropped her kids off on me again and ran off to the lake. Those kids are going to start thinking my house is home."  Every week she complains about her sister.

She folds her way through the right hand side of the room and complains her way around the left.  Willie watches from his chair quietly amused.  Every week he sits captivated by the show.

"Well," she says, with a long exhale and dramatic droop of her shoulders, "I've got to go.  Next week, I promise I'll come when I have more time and we can talk. Okay?" 

She picks up her bag and leans over the chair to kiss him.  Every week she says, "I love you, Dad."

And then she's gone.