He Rescued a Dog Over My Gran, So I Took His Helicopters novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: Phyllis's Kitchen

"Say that again," I said.

Phyllis held the rail with both hands.

"Not here," she said. "I'll say it all, but I'll say it sitting down. Come to the house."

I should have said no.

I said yes, because I wanted to watch her say it.

Her kitchen was on a quiet street in Auburn, with yellow curtains and a pot of soup already on the back burner.

She had made it that morning, before the board.

She turned the burner off and sat at the table, and I stayed standing by the door.

"Beck was asleep on the office couch when you called," Phyllis said. "I sleep over at the base in fire season. I'm the one who answers the dispatch phone."

"Go on."

"He took your call on his cell, and I heard him say four minutes. I heard him promise you." She turned her wedding ring around her finger. "Sheridan had already called him at 4:06. She said the dog was safe."

"I know."

"He hung up on you and said, 'Vic's on Dutch Ravine, Mom. With her grandmother.'" Phyllis looked at the table. "And he asked me what to do."

"He asked you."

"He's asked me what to do since he was six." Her voice stayed soft. "I thought about the contract, and I thought about eight years of that company. And I thought about Sheridan, whom I have loved like a daughter since she was seventeen."

"You broke them up when she was seventeen."

"I broke them up when he was seventeen, because they were children." Phyllis lifted her eyes. "I was wrong about Sheridan. I wasn't wrong about you."

I felt the room tilt.

"What does that mean?"

"It means you would have stood in that ditch and never made a scene." She said it kindly, as if it were a compliment. "I knew you would. You were the one person in his life who would take whatever happened and say, 'Thanks, Jude.'"

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