Page 63 of Omega’s Fold

“Hello.”

There is no voice on the other end.

“Hello?” I say again.

Then, distantly, on the far side of the room from the receiver, I hear Wyatt’s voice say, “Who’s on the phone?”

A younger voice says, “No one.”

The line goes dead. I press the redial button.

17. Wyatt

Matthew is on the kitchen phone with the cord stretched halfway across the room.

I stop in the doorway. I have come in from the yard with a half-pail of feed for the chickens.

Matthew is standing at the far end of the counter with his back to me and the receiver pressed up against his ear.

Matthew startles when he sees me and his face does the small quick rearrangement it does when he is going to lie about something.

“Who’s on the phone?”

He looks at me. The cord is taut between him and the wall.

“No one.”

“Matthew.”

He puts the receiver down. He puts it down carefully then he ducks under the cord and around the table and out the back door, fast, past me at the threshold and across the porch and down the steps and into the yard. He’s been antsy ever since I told him about the pregnancy. He’s excited about being an uncle, but something about it has unnerved him too. I think it’s because it was unexpected. He’s a sensitive kid. He picks up on more than he lets on and with everything with the ranch, I think he doesn’t really know what the future looks like and he’s finding that scary.

I set the feed pail on the counter.

The phone rings. On the fourth ring I cross the kitchen and I pick it up.

“Briggs.”

There is a long pause on the other end of the line.

“Wyatt. It’s Julian.”

My hand tightens on the receiver.

“Wyatt?”

“I’m here.”

“I think Matthew called me. I dialed back without thinking.”

“Yeah.”

Silence follows. “How are you?” he says finally.

“Fine.”

He waits. I do not fill the wait. I have been trying to get my breathing under control since I picked the receiver up and I am not winning. I know what the social niceties are. I need to ask him how he is back, but that old fear of speaking is climbing up through my belly. It’s Julian on the phone. Julian. I have had so many conversations with him in my head. What is wrong with me? Why can’t I have one in real life?

“How is the ranch?” he says.