My Husband Sent the Helicopter to Save a Dog, So I Signed novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: Thinking of You

"Yes," I said. "That's me."

Mitchell flinched.

"I recorded it on my father's anniversary, on the floor of his bakery. I sent it to the number you gave me for emergencies."

"I never got it," he said.

"You got an answer."

Odette's hand moved toward her phone.

"Give me your phone, Mitchell," I said. "The one in your pocket. Open the thread with my name."

He took it out slowly.

Odette stepped forward. "Darling, you don't need to do this in front of everyone."

"Odette," Constance said. "Stand where you are."

For once, Odette did.

Mitchell found my name and opened it.

He scrolled up past the unread blue bubbles, past the dozens I'd sent, to the gray ones that came back.

I leaned over his shoulder and read them with him.

*Thinking of you. J.*

*Busy week, will call soon. J.*

*Proud of you. J.*

Under my voice note from fourteen months ago, sent the next morning at 6:02, was the reply.

*I'm here. Be strong. J.*

"I didn't write these," Mitchell said.

Nobody answered.

"I have never written a message to my wife that said Be strong. I would have said something else." He looked up at Odette. "I don't even know what I would have said. I never saw it."

"Mitchell." Odette's voice dropped, soft and reasonable. "She was calling you at three in the morning. You were exhausted. Somebody had to answer her, and you were in no state."

"You answered my wife," he said, "as me. For two years."

"Somebody had to love her for you."

It was the first thing I had ever heard her say with no sugar on it.

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