Then Tony comes back.
“…You just got that new phone, right?”
The words hit me like a punch I don’t see coming.
“Yeah,” I say slowly.
“Did you change your voicemail pin?”
My jaw tightens.
“Yeah.”
“What did you set it to?”
I don’t answer right away.
“Ethan.”
I swallow. “My mom’s birthday.”
There’s a sound on the other end of the line that isn’t quite a laugh.
“…Jesus Christ.”
A cold, creeping realization slides down my spine.
Tony exhales hard. “Okay. Okay. That explains a lot.”
“What?” I ask.
“Well,” he says carefully, “wedefinitelyleft you messages.”
I grip the phone tighter.
“And I definitely never got them.”
Silence stretches between us, heavy and loaded.
Tony finally says, quieter now, “That’s… not great.”
“No,” I agree. “It’s not.”
I stare at my desk, at the blinking cursor on my computer screen, at the neat little world of work pretending everything’s normal.
A surprise party I never knew about.
Voicemails I never heard.
An entire crew on the Cape without me.
“Happy birthday,” I say finally, flat.
Tony sighs. “Yeah. Sorry, man.”
We hang up.
I sit there long after the line goes dead, staring at my BlackBerry like it might explain itself if I just wait long enough.
