I hadn't called the realtor.
A year and a half of choices laid out, and I hadn't picked one up. Stay or go. Sell or keep. Engine 295 or Hartsdale. Some mornings, I thought about putting the house on the market. By afternoon, I'd be telling myself I'd do it next week. Next week had turned into next month. Next month was eighteen months long.
My phone rang in my back pocket. I pulled it out, expecting Duke or the realtor I wasn't going to call back.
Shane.
I hadn't talked to him in three weeks, which for us was about average. We weren't the kind of friends who needed to be in touch regularly. We were the kind of friends where you could pick up the phone after six months and start mid-sentence.
I set my coffee down on the counter and answered.
"Briggs."
"Ford."
His voice was the same as it had been on every job I'd run with him at the back of the truck. Calm with no warm-up. The kind of voice that didn't change whether he was telling you to grab the irons or telling you his kid had been born.
"How you been?"
"Hangin' in." I turned and put my back against the counter, the way I always did when a call was going to be longer than a minute. Penny lifted her head off the rug to check on me, decided I was fine, and put it back down.
"How's everybody up there?"
"Maya's good. The boys are eating their weight."
"Both of them?"
"Both of them. Henry put down two grilled cheeses yesterday at the kitchen counter without sitting down."
I could picture it. The Briggs kitchen, the island they'd put in when James was a baby, Henry with his shoes still on because nobody could ever get him to take them off at the door.
"How old is he now?"
"Six."
"Already?"
"James is eight, and Henry is six, and I have no idea how either of those numbers is real."
"Zoe?"
"Good. Two of her roommates moved out, so she's looking for a third right now. She and Lily come home on Sundays for dinner."
"That's good." I was smiling without meaning to, looking at nothing across the kitchen. "That's good, Shane."
"We're looking for a bigger place, actually."
"In the borough?"
"Has to be in the borough. New shift means I gotta be close."
I straightened off the counter. "New shift?"
A beat. On his end, I could hear a door close and the background hum drop, like he'd stepped into another room for this part.
"Captain of B-shift, Ford."
I closed my eyes.
