Life after Goodbye novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: The Last Call

"You did it," she said again, softer.

I sat up in the dark with the phone pressed to my ear.

"Who are you?" I said. "I mean, where are you?"

"A kitchen." She was almost laughing. "It has a big window and a lake behind it. There's a three-year-old asleep upstairs who hates socks."

My hand went flat on my stomach.

"I called you in a parking lot once," I said. "I asked you if the baby was a boy or a girl. You couldn't answer."

"I couldn't. I'd have been answering a question about someone who was never born."

"And now?"

"Now I'll answer it properly. I'll call you one more time, Calla. The night before she's born."

I heard the word she, and I pressed my lips together.

"Why only once more?"

"Because the future is what it is, and this one has a child in it." Her voice wobbled. "I don't get to keep calling a past that doesn't hurt anymore."

"Are you happy?"

"I cried all through the first year after she was born." She laughed, wet. "It was the good kind. You'll know the difference."

"Is Cormac..."

"Ask him yourself," she said. "Get some sleep. You'll want it."

The line went quiet, and it did not click.

It simply wasn't there.

Cormac moved beside me and put a hand on my hip.

"Who was that?" he mumbled.

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