Chapter 7 - The Voice on the Phone
I called Andrew at seven-thirty in the morning. I'd been up since four — made coffee, let it go cold, made more. I'd picked up the envelope with his number on it and set it down so many times the paper had gone soft.
Nancy had offered to sleep over. I'd sent her home to her husband. This was something I needed to do in an empty house, with nobody watching my face.
Three rings. Then: "Hello?"
A man's voice. Middle range. A little wary, the way you are with a number you don't know.
My throat locked.
"Hello?" he said again.
"Andrew." It came out steadier than I had any right to expect. "My name is Ruth Boyd. Susan Reyes gave me your number. I'm—"
I stopped. I'd rehearsed this for three hours. Every version I'd practiced suddenly sounded wrong.
"I know who you are," he said. Quiet.
"You do?"
"Susan called me this morning. Before you did." A pause. "She said you'd gotten the letter. She said you might call today."
"I hope it isn't too sudden."
"No." A longer pause. "I've been waiting eleven years for this call. It's not too sudden."
I flattened my hand on the table.
"I need you to know one thing first," I said. "Before anything else. I didn't know. About the pregnancy. About you. I was eighteen and my mother handled it without telling me. I went away and I came home and I didn't understand what had happened to me until three days ago."
Silence.
"Andrew?"
"I'm here." Something had shifted in his voice. "I didn't know that."
"I know you didn't. All you had was a birth record and a first name. That's not much to go on."
"It wasn't." A breath. "When I was younger I used to think you just didn't want me. That it was a decision you made."
"It wasn't."
"I think I knew that before today, honestly. Susan was careful with what she told me, but she made it clear it was complicated. That there were other people in it."
"My mother," I said. "And Walter."
"He found me. Did you know that? He paid Susan."
"I know. He told me in the letter."
"He never once contacted me himself. Susan said he wanted to be sure you knew first. That you got to decide." A pause. "I was angry about that at the time. I think I understand it now."
I looked out the kitchen window. The garden was gray and still. The roses I'd planted the year my husband died had come back again, bare canes waiting out the winter.
"I have two other children," I said. "A daughter, Nancy. A son, Paul. They know about you."
"How'd they take it?"
"Nancy wants to know if you're a decent person before she decides how she feels."
He laughed — sudden, real, and it caught me somewhere under the ribs.
"That's fair," he said.
"Paul wants to be there when I meet you. If we meet."
"When," Andrew said. Not if. "I'd like that. If you're willing."
"I'm willing." My voice wasn't quite level anymore. "Whatever you need from me, whatever you want to ask — I'll answer all of it. I won't hide anything."
"I've got a lot of questions."
"I know."
"Some of them aren't easy ones."
"I know that too."
A long pause.
"I have two daughters," he said. "Eleven and fourteen. Ava and Claire." Another pause. "I told them about you last night, after Susan called. I told them I might be talking to their grandmother soon."
My hand went to my mouth.
"I hope that's all right. We don't keep things from each other in our house."
"It's all right," I managed. "It's more than all right."
"Claire cried. She's the fourteen-year-old. She's dramatic — gets it from her mother."
I was crying. I didn't bother hiding it.
"Ruth." He said my name like a word he'd been practicing. "I'd like to come see you. If you'll have me."
"Yes," I said. "Please. Yes."
After we hung up I sat a long time in the quiet kitchen.
May you like
Then my phone buzzed. Not Kevin's number this time. A different one.
I know what Andrew's about to find out. Do you? Call me before he gets on that plane. — K.B.
