Day by day, we’d said. And if every day could end like this, with Calloway safe in my arms and the world reduced to this room, this bed, the two of us… Well, I’d take as many days as he was willing to give me.
The last thing I remembered before sleep claimed me was Calloway murmuring something that might have been my name, soft and content. A deep hope filled me. Maybe we were both finding our way home. Not to a place, but to each other. Two damaged souls creating something whole from their broken pieces.
It wasn’t the life I’d planned. It was infinitely better.
13
CALLOWAY
My phone rang at exactly nine o’clock that Sunday morning after the storm, like it had every Sunday for the past few years. I stared at it from across the room, my coffee mug frozen halfway to my lips, and let it go to voicemail.
I knew who it was. I knew what she wanted. And I knew that no matter how much I’d grown or changed in the past few weeks, talking to my mother would send me right back to being that broken five-year-old she never stopped trying to fix.
Fraser looked up from the book he was reading. He’d picked up clean clothes from his house this morning and had come back right after. We’d shared breakfast, then coffee, and now books, the comfortable silence broken only by the occasional shared passage or observation. It was domestic in a way that should have terrified me, but instead it felt like breathing.
“You okay?” he asked, marking his place with his finger.
“My m-m-mother,” I managed, the stutter already worse from thinking about her.
Understanding crossed his face. We’d talked about my parents, about the endless therapy and disappointment, but he’dnever pushed for more than I was willing to share. “Want me to give you some privacy?”
“N-no.” The word came out too fast, too desperate. “Please st-stay.”
The phone rang again. Because, of course, she’d call right back. Patricia Gilstrap had never met a boundary she couldn’t bulldoze with good intentions and willful ignorance.
This time, I answered, if only to stop the ringing. “H-h-hello, M-Mother.”
“Calloway! Finally. I was beginning to think something had happened to you.” Her voice filled the room through the phone speaker, as sharp and stinging as the slice of a knife. “You haven’t called in weeks.”
I hadn’t called her in months, actually, since she always called me, but pointing that out would only lead to a lecture about family obligations. “I’ve b-b-been b-b-busy.”
The stutter was already worse, tripping over itself in that particular way it did when she was involved. Fraser quietly moved closer to me on the couch, not touching but present, and somehow that made it bearable.
“Busy? Doing what?”
“W-w-writing.”
A long pause. “Are you making any progress? It seems to me you’ve been working on the same book for an awfully long time. I know Marcus left you money, but?—”
“Y-yes. Same b-b-book.”
“Are you sure that’s the best use of your time? I can’t imagine publishers will be interested in a memoir about such a depressing subject from someone they’ve never heard of.”
Every word from her lips was another stab, killing me with a thousand little cuts. I wouldn’t be surprised to look down and find myself actually bleeding. “I’m w-w-writing for m-me, M-Mom. Not f-f-f-or pub-b-blication.”
“Maybe a change of scenery would help you find motivation again. Which reminds me, your father and I were talking, and we really think you should reconsider Florida. The weather is divine, and there’s a wonderful speech therapy clinic in our neighborhood. Dr. Morrison says they’re doing amazing things with adult stuttering now.”
My hand clenched around the phone. Forty-three years since the quarry, and she was still trying to fix me. “I’m n-n-not m-m-moving to F-F-Florida.”
“I don’t understand. What’s keeping you in that dreary little town? There’s a reason we moved away, Calloway. There’s nothing there but bad memories.”
I didn’t even know what to say to that.
“It’s not healthy, Calloway, hiding away like you do. You need to get back out there, meet people. I know losing Marcus was hard?—”
“Mother.” The word came out sharp, clear for once in my desperation to stop her.
“—but it’s been seven years. You can’t mourn forever. He wouldn’t want that.”
