Page 36 of Empty Net

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"I had pretzels and Skittles in an arena with a hockey player."

The sentence escapes before I can stop it.

There is a silence on the line.

Not empty. Marked.

"A hockey player," she says.

"A colleague."

"You do not eat Skittles in an arena with colleagues."

"You don't know that."

"I know you."

I put one hand over my eyes. "Mom."

"Is this why you sound different?"

"I sound different?"

"Yes."

"Different how?"

She considers this. I can picture her in the kitchen in Ann Arbor, phone tucked between shoulder and ear, one hand on a mug of tea, my father pretending not to listen from the living room and absolutely listening.

"Less organized," she says.

The words land so cleanly that I almost sit down.

"That sounds bad."

"No," she says. "It sounds alive. But alive is harder to alphabetize."

I laugh again. It is too close to something else, so I stop.

"Is he kind?" she asks.

I should correct the pronoun. I do not.

"Yes."

"To you?"

The question is sharper than the first one. Librarian's blade. Precise, quiet, aimed at the shelf I am avoiding.

I look at the hallway, at the bedroom beyond it, at the door Nolan walked through.

"He is trying to be," I say.

My mother is quiet.

"That is not the same thing," she says.

"I know."

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