Page 3 of Every Almost

"I love you."

"I love you too, Kit."

"Talk later?"

"Talk later."

The line went dead. Charlie set the phone down and stared at it.

Moments passed before she put on new gloves, went back to the tray, and began studying the pieces of debris again. But her mind was wandering and she wasn't able to focus. She kept thinking back to what her sister had just told her. She pushed too hard, hovered too close, tried to fix something that didn't needfixing, and the person she loved most had finally, gently, firmly asked her to stop.

She stopped, sat there for five minutes, maybe ten. The lab was quiet around her. The debris fragments on the workbench caught the fluorescent light from overhead in a way that was almost iridescent, throwing colors of the rainbow against the inside walls.

Charlie's hands were restless. Her chest was tight, the thoughts stampeding through her mind, the particular ache beating against her of knowing she'd done the thing she could sometimes do.

She peeled the gloves off her hands and dropped them on the workbench beside the tray. Then she picked up the phone and dialed her mom's number.

It rang once. Twice. Three times. Four.

The answering machine clicked on. Her mom's voice, still on the machine because neither she nor Katie had been able to change it, said, "You've reached the Beckman household. No one is able to come to the phone right now as we're probably out in the garden or working in the garage, but go ahead and leave a message and we'll try to call you back. Have a lovely day."

The beep sounded.

Charlie took a breath.

"Hey, Kit. It's me."

She leaned back in her chair, the receiver tucked against her shoulder, and let her eyes close.

"I know you're busy with Mr. Henderson. I just... I wanted to say something while it's fresh in my mind. While I don't have you around to interrupt me." Charlie laughed quietly.

"You were right. On the phone just now. You were completely right, and I'm sorry. I know you said not to be sorry, but I am. I know you're handling things. I've known you can handle things. Hell, probably better than me. I just... I think I keep callingbecause if I'm managing the details, I don't have to think about the fact that Mom's gone." A deep breath. "And if I'm worrying about you, I don't have to sit with how much I miss you, Kit-Kat. But that's my thing, not yours, and that's not fair to you." She took a big breath. "That's why I'm sorry."

She dragged a hand down her face.

"Here's what I should have said on the phone, and what I should have been saying all along, and all these years since I noticed you growing up and becoming an adult and living life as this incredible person." Charlie took a deep, cleansing breath. "You are the strongest, smartest person I know. You have been since you were seven years old and you sat next to me on the back porch with popsicles and didn't ask a single question about why I was upset. You moved to California with nothing just to stick by me when Ed and Diane kicked me out. You walked away from them without looking back. You got into UCLA all on your own, following your own dreams, and then you got into the graduate program. Now, you're handling Mom's entire estate by yourself, and you're doing it better than I ever could."

Her voice softened.

"I trust you, Kit. I trust you implicitly. I trust the woman you've become. And I am so, so proud of you. I should say that more. I should say it every time I call instead of asking about lawyers and insurance paperwork."

She opened her eyes and looked up at the ceiling.

"I love you, Kit-Kat. More than the sky, the stars, and the universe." Charlie let the tape run. "You know that right? There is nothing in the entire vastness of space and stars that matters more to me than you do. And I don't think there ever will be."

She smiled to herself, knowing how Katie would react to that one with the eye roll, the "you're so cheesy," the smile she'd try to hide.

She was about to say goodbye when something on the workbench pulled her attention.

One of the larger fragment, one she'd logged that morning that had been running two degrees warmer than the others, wasglowing.

Charlie sat up straight, her chair creaking under her. The fragment pulsed with an iridescence rising in it that threw wrong colors against the inside of her goggles. She leaned forward because something was happening right in front of her that her brain couldn't explain, and every instinct kicked in at the same time.

She reached out with her bare hand and her palm closed around the fragment.

It was warm. No, it washot.

Geez, it must really be hot if I can feel it through my gloves?—