I cut the phone off, elated that I had spoken to him. Little did I know what I had kicked off.
The next day, I was at the pool with my kids and turned on my cell phone to a text from him. He was asking me to call him back and wanted to know who I was and what I had meant by calling him. I was truly excited now at the prospect of speaking to him again. So I called the number he left. He answered with “Who is this?”
I said, “Who is this? What do you mean, who is this?”
A long silence. Then he told me gently that he wanted my word that I would lose his number and not call him again. I didn’t feel like promising any such thing, so I didn’t answer him. Finally he said he didn’t want to change his number but he would if he had to.
I said I knew I shouldn’t have called. “Then why did you?” he asked.
“Because sometimes I’m not very bright,” I said.
“You’ve got that right,” he said. Then he hung up.
My heart sank. The contempt in his voice had been obvious. I cursed myself for calling him back. But I went on with my day.
Until Bob came home. I was in our bedroom. He came back to where I was and closed the door. He sat down in one of our chairs and said. “I need to know what you said to (him) when you called because whatever it was, you scared him to death.”
Not Quite Right 