Chapter 15: The Wires Come Off

Elora's POV

The oral surgeon cut the wires on a Thursday, six weeks after the truck.

She used a pair of small cutters, one wire at a time, and each snip was a small hard click against my teeth.

Beth sat in the corner with her phone in her lap and her jaw clenched in sympathy.

Ansel stood by the door, because I had said he could.

"Open," the surgeon said. "Slowly. It's going to feel foreign."

I opened.

My jaw moved down an inch and clicked, and the whole left side of my face burned.

I tried to say my name, and it came out as a croak.

"Take your time," the surgeon said.

I closed my mouth, and opened it again, and said, "Elora."

It was a rough, flat, ugly sound.

It was the first one I had made on purpose in forty-three days that was not a hum.

Beth burst into tears.

"Sorry," she said, wiping her face with her sleeve. "That's the sound of my best friend, sorry."

I laughed, and it hurt, and I did it anyway.

Then I turned my head and looked at my husband.

He had not moved from the door.

He was holding the frame with one hand, and his face was wide open and afraid.

I had practiced the words for six weeks on the whiteboard.

They did not come out the way I had written them.

"You said Good," I told him.

My voice cracked on the second word.

"Say it again," I said. "Tell me what you said, and why."

He did not look away from me.

"I said Good," he said. "You had sent me a photo of your father's ring, and I told her to delete it."

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