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Now his phone jangled on the bedside table.
A number he didn’t recognize.
But he answered. “Hello?”
“Hi, Daddy!”
Renee! His knees buckled at the sound of his daughter’s voice.
He dropped onto the corner of the bed, relief flooding through him. “Hey, baby. How are you? Where are you?”
“In the mountains!”
“What mountains?”
“I don’t know, but we drove a long time. It was sooo boring.”
“Oh, sweetie, I’ve missed you.”
“Me too, Daddy! We made snow angels and a snow fort, even with a light, and Merlin got lost,” she said all in a tumble, eager to share with him, then added, “But this place is gross!”
“Gross? How?”
“Yeah, like weird and creepy. Like a . . . like a haunted house.”
“That doesn’t sound good.” Where the devil were they?
“I know. Mommy’s got all the doors locked. Like she’s scared.”
Jesus.
“Daddy, I want to come home.”
He felt his heart crack. “And I want you to come home. When are you coming back?”
“I don’t know . . . Mommy?” He heard muffled conversation, as if Renee had turned her head away from the phone, her voice saying, “Daddy wants to know when we’re going home.”
A beat. Silence. Then, “I’m not sure.” Lucy’s voice, too, was muffled from afar, and a deep emotion stirred in him. Anger, yes, but longing as well. God, he’d loved her. Once upon a time. That the feelings still lingered pissed him off.
Voice still indistinct, Lucy said, “We’ll go home soon.”
A lie, he thought. She had no plans. He knew that.
“Honey,” he said into the phone, trying to get his daughter’s attention. “Renee?”
“Yeah?” his daughter was back.
“Can you put Mommy on the phone for just a sec?”
“Okay.” Again her voice became indistinct, but he heard, “Daddy wants to talk to you.”
Boy, did he, and he wanted to yell and rant, but he told himself that would be unproductive, that he needed information, not her immediate response of ending the call, so he fought the fear that was beginning to crawl through him.
“Hey,” his ex-wife said, and the soft sound of her voice caused a physical reaction, an eroding of his resolve.
“Where are you?”
A pause that stretched too long.
