The Phone Calls

I know the jail number now. It keeps coming up on the caller ID.

He keeps calling. I keep not answering. It bothers me.

And we know he wants a visit, but we also know how the visit will be. I ask myself, knowing the answer, "doesn't he have enough common sense to know that when we talk to him or visit him he should be respectful"?

But he doesn't.

And I hate the hypervigilence I have to have in order to make sure none of the other kids answer the phone and accept the charges.

I remember now why I have been dreading summer. It's because for the girls, especially, their social life becomes very demanding. Very succeptible to peer pressure, I have to be hypervigilant. Or at least I feel like I have to be.

People don't understand why I say that there is a reason we don't have more girls, but this social thing is amazing. They are so caught up in what their friends think that I swear their brains completely turn off.

And it exhausts me.