Five.
“Hello?” The voice is low and husky either from time or cigarettes. Possibly both.
My mouth goes dry. I almost hang up. “Hi,” I say. “Is this Francine?”
Silence. Then, “Who’s calling?”
“My name is Henry.” The room tilts and rights itself. “I’m calling from Colorado.”
“Mmm.” Ice clinks against glass on her end. “If you’re going to try to sell me something, sweetie, you’re wasting your time.”
Seriously? The name Henry doesn’t ring a bell at all with her?
“I’m not.” I swallow. “I don’t want anything from you. I just… I’m trying to confirm something.”
Zach noses my palm. I grip the phone tighter.
“Go on,” she says.
“I think…” I clear my throat. “I think you’re my mother.”
On the other end, the ice stops clinking.
“You have a last name, Henry?” She speaks slowly, more measured now.
I clear my throat again, rub my temples to ease the throbbing. “Simpson. My father is Bryce Simpson.”
I close my eyes. The headache drills behind them.
Finally, she exhales. “I haven’t heard that last name in a very long time.”
I sit up straighter. “So you are?—”
“I didn’t say yes.” A rustle, like she’s moving to another room. “Tell me your birthday.”
I rattle it off.
Another rustle. Another long silence. Zach lays his head on my knee and breathes slowly.
“Okay,” she says at last. Softer. “What do you want, Henry?”
A hundred questions fly through me and crash into each other. Nothing. Everything. Why did you leave me? Thank you for leaving me. Do I laugh like you? Do I want the wrong things the way you did? Do you have a birthmark like I do? Did you ever…kill another person?
But all that comes out is?—
“I wanted to hear your voice,” I say.
She laughs, not unkindly. “You and every man who ever bought a ticket, sugar.”
“Yeah.” I exhale. “I deserved that.”
“You don’t deserve anything yet,” she says. “And I don’t owe you anything.” A beat. “But no one calls me on a Friday night unless they’re either a scammer or a ghost, and you don’t sound like either.”
“I’m not,” I say. “I’m just a guy with a lot of questions.”
“And a concussion, from the way you’re talking.”
How the hell does she know? “I just had brain surgery, but I’m okay.”
