The whole conversation felt stilted and distant and…yeah, distant. Did they have a snowball’s chance when they were a thousand miles apart? The weeks together last month had been…perfect. Now? Not so perfect.
He pulled into a gas station but before he lined up with a pump, he parked his truck so he could concentrate on the conversation.
“Listen, Eli, I feel the pain in your voice and, yeah, this is a terrible turn of events.” She sighed into the phone, giving him a visual of the way she must look on the other side of this call.
He could see her dark hair with fringed bangs, her sparkly brown eyes, and that wide smile with a hint of dimples. She’d have her glasses…somewhere between where they belonged on her nose and lost on the closest counter or in her pocket.
His heart tightened with affection.
“But we are talking about ancient history,” she added, pulling his thoughts away from her looks and back to this problem.
“Not that ancient,” he said.
“Thirty years? And both men in question are gone?” Her voice rose with frustration. “Does it really matter anymore?”
He blinked at the question and stared straight ahead. “Are you serious?” he asked on a rasp. “My dad went to prison, where he died.”
“Who’s to say he wouldn’t have died if he hadn’t been in prison?” she countered.
“We’ll never know, but he was alone—which he likely wouldn’t have been at home—and he had...prison stress.”
He heard her take a steadying breath. “He committed serious crimes, Eli. Does it really matter who turned him in? You don’t question his guilt, do you?”
An old and familiar disgust wound through him. “No, I never have. He was guilty.”
“Well, is it relevant how the authorities learned of his…activities?”
“It’s relevant to my family,” he said, hearing the coolness in his voice. “And, whoa, it matters to my mother.”
“Everything matters to Maggie.”
He winced, not sure he liked that sentiment, even if he might agree with it.
“I’m sorry,” she added quickly, as though she realized that was hurtful. “I know what your father did is a source of true pain for you, Eli. But you need to spread a little of that forgiveness you believe in so much.”
Oh. Was there anything a Christian hated more than being reminded that they weren’t acting like, well, a Christian?
“I can forgive him—Artie, that is,” he said. “I don’t like that he felt compelled to ruin my father’s life, but?—”
“Eli! We don’t know any of the details or if this is even true.”
“Which is why I want you to ask Jo Ellen, but I understand she’s not feeling well.”
“She’s a wreck,” she said. “Is it possible she’s getting worse in her grief and not better?” Her voice sounded pained, enough that he put everything out of his head but the need to help her.
“It can,” he said, sadly speaking with authority on the subject. “Like a rebound thing.”
He closed his eyes and tried to think back to the darkest days of his life.
Not when his father died in prison—though that time was wretched, too—but fifteen years ago when two police officers and an HR representative from the TV station where Melissa worked walked into his office. They came to deliver the news that the station’s private plane had gone down and there were no survivors, but to this day, he couldn’t recall one word of that conversation.
“I guess grief is not linear,” Kate said, sounding very much like the scientist she was.
“No, so…be good to Jo Ellen,” he said. “Don’t ask her anything that’s going to upset her.”
“Thanks for understanding, Eli.”
“Sure, sure. I just…really worry about all that Crista said. Maggie literally doesn’t want us talking to anyone named Wylie…”
