Chapter 18: Her Own Number

On Thursday morning Russell's phone lay face up beside my mother's coffee cup.

He had gone out to the garden to take a call, and he had left it there, as he left everything, in plain sight.

My mother was reading the paper.

I was buttering toast and watching Chet's empty chair.

The phone buzzed against the cloth.

My mother glanced at it.

Then she went still.

I saw the preview from where I sat, a gray box on the dark glass.

Contract final. Number four signs at nine on stage.

The sender was the lawyer who had brought the papers to the study.

My mother did not touch the phone.

She only looked at it.

"Mom," I said.

"Don't."

"I didn't say anything."

"You're about to." She folded the paper in half, and then in half again. "Don't, June."

She sat with her hands flat on the folded paper.

I watched the muscle in her jaw.

The phone went dark.

"I read that book," she said, so quietly that I leaned in. "On Sunday, before your father took it."

"I know."

"I read my name and a number beside it, and I told myself it was an investment."

"Mom."

"I told myself for four days. I'm very good at it."

She laughed once, and it hurt to hear.

"He remembered the bridge. Your father forgot our anniversary twice. Russell remembered which rail."

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