Chapter 17: Not Forgiven

"Melinda-bug, it's Dad."

His voice was thinner than I remembered, and cheerful in the way he got when he was frightened.

"They've got me in a paper gown that doesn't close, so don't ever tell anyone you saw me."

"A nice lady is holding the phone because my hands won't stop shaking. It's the stuff they gave me, not nerves."

"Don't leave your shift early. It's quiet here, and I'll be asleep by nine anyway."

"Eat something that didn't come out of a machine. I mean it."

"I love you. See you Friday. Bye, bug."

The message ended with a small click.

I played it again.

I played it a third time with my forehead pressed against the pew in front of me.

The sound I made was not a sound I had ever made.

Jonas did not touch me.

He sat two feet away with his hands open on his knees, and he let me do it.

When I was done, I wiped my face on my sleeve and found my phone buzzing in my hand.

It was Oz.

Stanfield cars on our street. Don't come home. Grandma's house, key's under the concrete frog.

Oz's grandmother had lived in a small yellow house on Fifty-Ninth with a lawn that was mostly moss.

It still smelled of lavender and cold radiators.

The furniture wore white sheets, and the only bed in the place was a narrow one in the back room under a quilt.

I turned on one lamp.

Jonas stood in the doorway, because he would not come in until I said he could.

"Sit down before you fall down," I said.

He sat on the edge of the quilt.

I stood in front of him with my arms wrapped around my ribs, and I could not find a place to put my anger.

"You had four years," I said.

"Yes."

"You had four years and a company and every kind of money, and you could have written one letter."

"I don't have those four years," he said. "I have a file with my name on it, and a hole where they were."

"That's convenient."

"It isn't. It's the worst thing that ever happened to me, and I want it back."

"Why?"

"Because I want to know whether I tried to stop it."

The room went still.

He rubbed his face with his good hand.

"When your father's voice came out of your phone I saw a screen," he said slowly. "A black one, in a room with no lights."

"It's a laptop. It says 8:56 p.m. I'm looking at a live map, and there's a red square on it that I know."

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