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Calli lets out a long breath after the squad car pulls out of the driveway. “The Kenneth’s were an elderly couple who lived next door to Mom and Carl years ago. They probably stole her bank information when she died.”
I take her hand in mine, feeling the slight tremble in her fingers. “There won’t be any more demands, or further activity on that account. There’s nothing else for them to investigate. We’re good.” She looks up at me when I squeeze her hand. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah, I think so. I just want to move on and put all this behind us.” She gives me a quick hug. “I’m going to go meet Silver.”
As I watch her drive away, it hits me again how extraordinary she is. So resilient and determined to get her life back when Iknow she’s constantly battling an undercurrent of anxiety and fear to do it.
And she does. Over the next few weeks, we return to our lives. Calli gets her cabin refurnished and inhabitable again. She joins a poetry club at the library and enjoys her walks in the woods like she used to, cutting them a little short due to the cold. I work around the property, spend a couple of days with Lee, fishing and helping him paint a vacant lake house, and return to drawing at night. Calli and I trade house keys, and each night finds her in my bed or me in hers. We spend Christmas high on my couch, eating cookies and watching movies—when we can pull our naked bodies apart for long enough.
The sound of a door closing upstairs makes me smile. It feels like I’ve awakened to dawn after years of night. This is what love sounds like. It’s the tap of her footsteps, the way she hums when she’s baking, her voice singing in the shower, the little snort she makes when something funny catches her off guard.
My guilt for risking her heart because of mine hasn’t disappeared, but I’ve had an appointment with a therapist to try to overcome it. We’ll be meeting a few times per month. Calli was right. It helps having an outside perspective, another person to reassure me that I’m not doing the wrong thing.
“Good morning, sleepy. Do you—” My words die when I turn to see Calli’s tearful face. She makes a beeline into my arms, burying her face in my chest. I cup the back of her head, holding her tight. “Hey, what’s wrong? What happened?”
She sniffs, keeping her forehead against my shirt. “The private investigator called. My dad passed away.”
Fuck. She had such high hopes of finding him, the only family she had any desire to see again. “Oh darling. I’m so sorry.”
She nods, still keeping her face buried. “Over two years ago. He was using another name so there was no way for authorities to reach me. They didn’t even know who he was.” Her voicecracks. “He died in some cheap motel alone where no one knew who he was.”
All I can do is hold her tighter as she cries and murmur reassuring words that probably hold little comfort. After a couple of minutes, she looks up at me. “Will you go to Indianapolis with me? The hotel manager said she held onto some of his things, in case anyone ever came looking.”
“Of course I will.”
The next few days are hard for Calli after getting such shocking news, but she seems to be feeling a little better once we’re settled into a nice hotel on the north side of Indianapolis.
“I think I kind of expected it, you know? After all this time, he would’ve found a way to get in touch. He wouldn’t have cut contact with my brother either.”
“Are you going to let him know?”
She nods with a frown and pulls out an envelope. “I wrote him a letter to tell him. With no return address. I’ll mail it while we’re here, so the postmark won’t tell him my state—not that I expect him to try to contact me anyway.”
“At least he won’t be left wondering.”
“Yeah.” She checks the time on her phone. “We can go anytime. The hotel manager should be in. We might have come for nothing. His remains were disposed of by the city a long time ago and his personal effects are likely just a few old clothes.”
“No, sweetheart.” I reach out to take her hand. “We came so you can say goodbye.”
She nods, giving me a small smile. I’m surprised to see her pull the container with her mother’s ashes out of her bag. “I’m dumping these today. They aren’t coming home with me again.”
“Okay, we can go wherever you like after the hotel.”
As hard as this is, the trip will probably be good for her in the end. Maybe she’ll get some closure and be able to leave them both behind.
The hotel is everything she told me it would be. Small, rundown, and dirty, in a dangerous part of town. A man sits on the ground at the edge of the parking lot, his belongings piled around him.
Calli leaves the urn in the car when we enter the small office. It stinks of years of cigarette smoke and mildew. A bored looking guy looks up from the desk. “You need a room?”
Calli steps up closer. “No, I need to speak to Jill Tolin, please.”
“Jill!” he shouts toward the doorway behind him. “Someone’s here for you!”
A moment later, a woman who looks near my mother’s age pokes her head through the door. “Are you Calli?” She doesn’t give her a chance to answer before answering herself. “Of course you are. Look at your smile. Just like Harry’s.”
“You knew him?” Calli asks.
“I did. He stayed here for, oh, at least six months, I want to say. Sweet guy. I liked him. I’m sorry for your loss.”
