Chapter 12: The Number

I drove around until three in the morning with nowhere to go.

At last I pulled into the lot behind the clinic and turned off the lights.

The strip mall was dark. The nail salon's sign buzzed over the empty spaces.

I sat with the heater running and the duffel bag on the passenger seat.

My hands were still shaking from the elevator.

I didn't know which part of the night hurt most.

It was the fifty-one percent, or the fence, or how fast I had gone to him.

I took the postcard out of the shoebox on my knees.

It was the one with the bridge. The ink had gone soft where she had pressed on it.

412-555-0178.

For twenty years I had thought she was overseas. Then I'd thought she didn't care.

Neither one was true.

I typed the number into my phone before I could stop myself.

It rang once, and twice.

On the third ring, someone picked up.

"Hello?"

It was a woman's voice, low and cautious and wide awake.

I couldn't speak.

"Hello?" she said again. Then, much more softly, "Lizzie?"

I put my hand over my mouth.

"How did you know?" I whispered.

"Nobody else has this number," my mother said. "Nobody has ever called it."

The heater ticked.

I heard her breathing on the line.

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