Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 91783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
The board lights up and stays lit, every line, and then the overflow Ember has no slots for. I take a few more. One of them is a man who doesn’t have a question. He just wants to tell me he hasn’t spoken to his own father in years, and that he’s driving out there tomorrow. His voice breaks on the word tomorrow. He hangs up before I can tell him good. I hope he goes. I hope there’s somebody at the end of that drive better at it than mine was.
For a minute after the light goes dark I sit there. I’ve said things on this show for months and meant most of them. I never once said that. Not to a caller, not to Josie, not to my own reflection. It took a dying man and a stranger on line four to get it out of me.
When I pull the headphones off, my phone’s going off. Paige. All caps: DAD. THIS IS EVERYWHERE. YOU’RE EVERYWHERE. I’M SO PROUD OF YOU. Under it, a second one: don’t read the numbers tonight, just come home. She knows me. I put the phone in my pocket without looking at the numbers.
Bex comes out of the booth with her eyes wet. She doesn’t wipe them and she doesn’t apologize for them. “That’s the best hour of radio I’ve ever produced,” she says.
“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever said,” I tell her. She nods and lets me have it without a speech. “I need to go, though. I want to be with my family. Can you run reruns the rest of the night?”
She nods. “I know there isn’t anything I can say to ease what you’re feeling, just know I’m a good listener if you want to talk.”
“Thanks, Bex,” I say as I head to the door.
Ember catches me as I pass by with a stack of mail. “This one didn’t come through the post,” she says. “It was in the door when I locked up last night.”
It’s a plain card, no envelope, no name. Small handwriting I’ve started to know without wanting to.
I felt it too, listening. I’ve always felt what you feel. That’s how I know we’re the same, you and me. You’re not alone in it. I’m right here.
Where the signature should be there’s a heart instead, drawn slow, filled in solid.
Bex reads it over my shoulder before I can turn it face down. She doesn’t say the name. She doesn’t have to. “That’s her,” she says. “Same handwriting.” She holds her palm out for it, and I hand it over.
“It’s a card,” I say. “It’s a lonely woman and a card.”
Bex gives me a flat look and doesn’t bother answering it. “Go home,” she says. “I’ve got this.”
My mother texts while I’m still in the lot.
Mother
It was his loss, son. Not yours.
I don’t text back. I’ll see her when I get home and if she’s not there, I’ll walk out back to visit her. Maybe I need her, to spend some time with her, to get over what I’m feeling. If he hadn’t called or the nurse hadn’t called, I wouldn’t know and I wouldn’t feel.
I pull into my driveway, get out and brace myself for the headlights that come in behind me. I shield my eyes until I get out of the spotlight. Nick gets out of his car with a plate in his hand.
“Talisa made too much dinner. I think she did it on purpose.” He walks toward me.
It smells damn good. I take the plate from him. “I would’ve come over for dinner if you wanted to see me.”
“Shut up.” Nick shakes his head. “You okay?” he asks, which is way of saying he’s sorry about Sterling.
“No,” I tell him. “But I will be.” He nods and lets it all stay there between us.
“I asked Teagan to dinner,” he says then, to the porch rail, not to me. “This weekend.”
It takes everything I have not to come out of my skin. “Yeah?”
“Don’t,” he says. “Don’t do the face.”
“I’m not doing a face.”
“You’ve been doing the face for weeks. You did it at the school thing. I watched you do it across the gym like you thought you were slick.” He points the finger at me. “She said yes to me. Not to whatever you think you set up. I asked her. Me.”
“Sure,” I say. “Whatever you need to tell yourself, my man.”
“I mean it, Westbury.” But he’s losing a fight with a smile the whole time he says it, and he knows I can see it, and he’s in his car before it wins.
Inside, the house is full of my people. Harrison’s asleep in my good chair, his bad arm hanging off the side, a baby drowsing on his chest. Josie and Katelyn are at the counter with wine and their heads together. Somebody’s got music going low. Paige is cross-legged on the floor with her laptop.