Page 55 of When We Had Forever
“Is it my voice?” Concern swims in his tone. “Shit. This must be weird for you. Even my mother could never tell us apart on the phone.”
“I amnottalking to my dead husband right now,” I hear myself say. “I’m not. You’re someone else.”
“Yes.” His voice tightens.
“You’re Grayson.”
“Uh-huh.”
“The photographer. Not an architect.”
“That’s right.” Silence filters through the line. “Shit. I knew this was a bad idea. I just... Would it be better if I hung up?”
“No,” I say. Then wonder how that word jumped out of me so fast. “Don’t. Please.”
“Okay.” He’s quiet. Something rustles in the background, and I picture him on a sofa somewhere in Seattle—scarred eyebrow, secret tattoo, and all.
That helps. Scar. Tattoos. Things Michael never had.
“The last thing I want to do is make this hard for you,” he says.
“My husband’s dead. It’s already hard for me. Talking to you isn’t going to change that.” I bite my lip. I’m not actually convinced that’s true—it’s essentially the exact opposite of what I told Kate. But at this point, I have to know what this is about. And the longer I sit here, the more the galloping in my veins slows.
“Okay,” he says. “If you’re sure.”
I try to wait out his silence, but he doesn’t add more. Whatever he wants, it doesn’t seem as though he’s going to come out and say it.
“To be honest,” I venture, “I’m surprised you got in touch. I didn’t think you knew I existed.”
He draws a long, pained breath. A dull thud sounds on the line, followed by a silence taut enough to make me fidget. Maybe he’s dropped the phone.
“Grayson?”
“Yeah.” He answers immediately, his tone brittle. “Sorry, I’m here. Of course I knew you existed. If anything, your email made it sound likeyoudidn’t know aboutme.”
I frown, wondering why he sounds so resentful of that. “I mean...I didn’t, not really. Not before you got famous, at least.”
Another long pause. “So Michael never...talked about me? Ever?”
“To be honest? No. He really didn’t.”
“Jesus Christ. That motherfucker. I shouldn’t be so surprised. I really shouldn’t.”
My lungs inflate. Him swearing helps, too. Michael rarely did. “There’s no need to get angry. After...what happened, I think it was too hard for him to talk about you. Too painful.”
“So you don’t know a thing about me, then.”
“I do,” I say slowly. “Sort of. I’ve seen pictures in magazines. Your stuff inNational Geographic. It’s kind of hard not to. And we used to have a photo on our wall. That you took. Of a tornado.”
“Yeah, I gave that to Michael one year for Christmas. I couldn’t afford anything better, at the time. What happened to it?”
I wince, realizing my use of the past tense has tipped him off. “He...uh...threw it out.”
“Oh.” More rustling. “In a fit of rage, I’m guessing?”
“Michael didn’t really do fits of rage.”
“You know what I mean. His version of rage, at least? Where he got all creepily calm?”
