“Garage.”
That was it.Garage.They all waited for more, and there wasn’t anything else. I jumped back in before the silence could turn around and look at me again. “Rafe, buddy, we’ve got a big road trip coming up. Are you ready to live out of a bag for ten days, or is Mom still packing it for you?”
“I pack my own bag,” Rafe said.
He gave them nothing in that flat Saskatchewan tone. It was perfect. He was boring.
***
Heath was alone by the SUV, keys in his hand. I joined him. “Where’s the other half?”
“Kieran went back up for his phone, left it in his stall.”
“He left his phone?” I asked.
“He leaves everything.” Heath shook his head. “Phone, wallet, one skate if we’re lucky.”
“He does that because you carry his life around for him.”
“Somebody has to.”
“You enjoy it.”
Heath laughed. “Good goal,” he said.
“It was Rafe’s goal. I just stood where I was supposed to stand.”
“He found you.”
“Same thing.”
He leaned back against the door. “How’s Rook?” he asked.
Nobody asked me that. You asked Rook how Rook was, or you asked the room. It made no sense to come to me. To the room, I was the guy who found Rook slow and Rook found exhausting.How’s Rookwas not a question for me.
Heath asked it as if it were.
I opened my mouth to sayhe’s goodand caught myself.
“I don’t know,” I said.
The second I’d said it, I wanted to take it back. I’d known how Rook was for the past five years. Still, part of it was true. Rook told me that a reporter wanted an interview. That wasn’t unusual, but there was something he held back. It was always best to wait for him to come to me, but for now, there was a room inside Rook I couldn’t enter.
The serene smile left Heath’s face.
“Varga.” He pushed off the door. “If you ever need—“
“Hey.” Kieran came around the back of the SUV, holding up his phone. “Found it. It was in the stall, just like I thought. Cross pointed at it when he saw me and didn’t say a word.”
“Emergency averted,” Heath said.
Kieran turned toward me. “Hey, did you hear it’s Ansel’s birthday Sunday? They’re doing a thing at the Shedd. He gets a herring cake held together with blubber. You don’t want to know. A bunch of kids are going to sing to him.”
“The beluga,” I said.
“Yep, the beluga.”
Heath looked back at me. “Tell him I said hi.”
