My Wife's Last Call I Never Answered novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Wrong Number

Philippa says she answered his phone by mistake and begs him not to mention her tour to his mother; his call log shows the fifth call lasted two minutes.

Philippa's hotel suite smelled of the peonies I had sent to her on opening night.

They were three months old, dried and brown in a vase by the window, and she had never thrown them out.

I used to think that meant something.

She opened the door in a robe with her wrist wrapped in a white bandage.

"I told you not to come," she said. "You looked wrecked in the taxi."

"I need to ask you something."

"Then come in."

She sat on the arm of the sofa and tucked her good foot under her.

I stayed standing.

"In Vienna," I said. "After the concert. My phone rang in my coat."

"Did it?"

"Clara called five times that night. You answered the last one."

Philippa did not look away, and her face did not change.

"Oh," she said. "That."

"What did you say to her?"

"Hayes, you left your phone on my dressing table when you went to find a vase for the flowers. It kept buzzing."

She pushed her hair behind her ear.

"I picked it up to stop the noise. I didn't even see the name. It was a woman's voice, and I thought it was someone selling something, so I said wrong number and hung up."

"Wrong number."

"Yes. Was it important?" Her eyes went wide. "Was she trying to tell you something?"

I said nothing.

"Oh, Hayes. I'm so sorry. I never would have."

She stood and put her hand on my arm.

It was the good hand, and it was cold.

I wanted to believe her so badly that I could feel my shoulders loosen.

"She was in surgery," I said. "She lost a baby that night."

Philippa's mouth opened, and for a second I thought she would cry.

"I didn't know she was pregnant," she said.

"Neither did I."

"That's terrible." She shook her head slowly. "That poor woman. And now she's blaming me."

"She hasn't said she's blaming you."

"She sent you here, didn't she?"

I didn't answer that either.

Philippa let go of my arm and went to the window.

Down on the street a delivery truck was backing up with a long, even beep.

"I'm not going to fight with your wife," she said, with her back to me. "I just want to play my concerts, Hayes. I'm back for three months and then I'm gone again."

"I know."

"Then do me a favor. Don't make this about the tour. And please, please don't tell your mother any of this."

That was the second time that day she had asked.

"Why does it matter what my mother hears?"

"Because we didn't end well, and she'll use it." She turned around and smiled, small and tired. "She never liked me. You know that."

I knew that.

My mother had said it plainly when we were twenty-eight: Philippa would take whatever she could carry and leave the rest.

I had been angry at her for years for that.

"Go home," Philippa said. "Get some sleep. We'll talk tomorrow."

She kissed my cheek at the door.

Her scent was the same as it had been when I was twenty-eight, and I stood in the elevator feeling better than I had all day.

That lasted until I reached the car.

The house was dark when I got home.

Clara's keys were not in the bowl by the door, and her coat was not on the hook.

I turned on the kitchen light.

The stove was clean. There were no dishes in the sink.

For three years I had come home to a plate under foil on that counter, and I had never once thought about who put it there.

I went upstairs to the closet.

Her side was still full of scrubs and white coats, all pressed and hanging in the same order.

She had taken one bag.

I sat on the bed and took out my phone.

I don't know why I opened the call log.

I think I wanted to see the five calls so I could say, to myself, that I had not been that cruel.

They were there, stacked in a column with her name on each.

Four of them said Declined, and each one had a time beside it of zero seconds.

The fifth said Answered.

Beside it was the length of the call.

A little over two minutes.

Nobody says wrong number for two minutes.

I read it again, and then a third time, and then I put the phone face down on the bed.

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