While I Couldn't Breathe, He Was With Her novel · Chapter 23 of 24
Chapter 23: Real Air
The producer in Fremont painted the sign herself.
It hung over the booth door on the first Monday of December, a plain wood board with white letters.
JOAN MABRY STUDIO.
I stood under it with a paper cup in each hand and waited for my eyes to stop stinging.
I had bought two coffees, and I set one on the corner of the desk where Joan would have sat.
Calvin leaned in the doorway of the control room and said nothing.
At midnight the red light came on, and for the first time I said the opening line without my voice breaking.
"Good evening. This is Dear Kirsten, and these are real calls. Tell me what happened to you."
Eight thousand people were listening, and the lines lit up one after another.
When the hour ended I took off the headset, and I found that I wasn't tired at all.
"Polly called," Calvin said, in the truck, on the long dark road south.
I turned my head.
"She's with a lawyer. She's giving the prosecutor everything about the calls and the footage and the notice." His hands stayed steady on the wheel. "She asked if I'd visit."
"Will you?"
"Sunday." He glanced at me. "She's still my sister."
"I know."
"I'm not asking you to forgive her."
"I'm not going to," I said. "But I'm glad you're going."
He nodded, and drove.
The cabin was dark when we pulled in, and the woodstove had burned down to coals.
He fed it two logs, and I stood in the middle of the room in my coat, watching the light climb.
"There's something I never told you," he said, with his back to me.
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