Chapter 23: First Ring

Hayes's POV

For three months I had slept with the phone on the pillow beside my head and the ringer turned all the way up.

Rory had stopped asking about it in February.

He only knocked on the spare room door each morning with a cup of coffee.

He looked at the phone, looked at me, and went away.

I wound my grandfather's watch every morning at six.

I did not wear it.

I kept it on the nightstand, ticking, next to the phone.

On the first Saturday in April I woke because the phone was lit.

It was not yet ringing.

The screen showed her name and the little green circle.

I did not stop to think about anything.

I was holding the phone before the first ring ended.

"Clara."

There was nothing on the line.

I could hear a door closing somewhere, and the hum of a building, and a long breath that did not finish.

"I'm here," I said.

"I know." Her voice was small and rough. "I wasn't sure you'd pick up."

"I picked up."

"It's three in the morning there."

"Yes."

"You answered before it rang."

"I was asleep. I answered anyway."

She laughed, once, and it went wrong in the middle.

"I lost a patient," she said.

I sat up in the dark and put my bare feet on the cold floor.

I did not say that I was sorry.

I did not say that she had done everything she could.

I had heard what that sounded like, from people who had never been where she was.

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