A Love Lost to the Years novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: The Whole Message

The assistant was at her desk outside the corner office, in a cardigan, eating a yogurt.

She saw him come out of the elevator and set the spoon down.

"Mr. Nordlund," she said. "You've got your shoes on this time."

"I do."

"Good. Sit. I've been expecting you since the article ran."

He did not sit.

"I need to hear a voicemail," Kenneth said. "Annabel left it for you the week of the wedding."

"I know which one."

She opened a drawer and took out an old phone with a cracked case, the kind nobody carried any more.

"I keep it charged," she said. "I've kept it charged for seven years."

"Why?"

"Because on the day she married you, I thought someday he's going to need to hear this."

"And she'll never say it out loud."

She held the phone out.

"I never played it for her. I thought it would be cruel."

Kenneth took it.

It was heavier than he expected.

He pressed play, and the hiss came first, and then the voice, rough and young.

"It's me. Pick up."

A pause followed.

"Fine. I'm marrying him on Saturday."

His chest tightened, and he made himself keep listening.

"I know what I told you I'd do to him. I can't. I can't do it."

"I walked into his shop on Tuesday and he was sweeping, and he said good morning to the broom."

Her laugh broke in the middle of it.

"Sheldon Lowry is going to sit in the front row of my life.

"He's going to watch me be happy with the man he thinks I'm wrecking."

"I'm going to make him pay every day for the rest of his life."

The voice dropped, almost too low to hear.

"And I think I'm in love with the carpenter, God help me. Don't say anything. Call me back tomorrow."

The message ended.

Kenneth stood in the empty outer office with the phone in his hand.

The light came in white off the lake.

He pressed play and listened to it again.

When it finished the second time, the assistant had politely turned her chair to face the window.

"I'm going to cry," Kenneth said, with great dignity. "I'd like it noted that I'm doing it quietly."

"It's noted."

"Thank you."

"Anything for the man who didn't sue me over the bathrobe," she said, and handed him a tissue without looking round.

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