Page 157 of The Best Shot

He just sat beside me and drank, minding his business and showing up wherever his wife told him to. Nico would’ve tried to go all Yoda on me if I’d given him the opening.

Yasmine’s emails came twice a day.

I learned the rhythm. Morning my time, which was her evening. Then again at night, which was her morning. Satellite windows, she’d explained. Limited bandwidth. Everybody down there lined up to send and receive messages like rations were being handed out.

She wrote long. Longer than she talked most days.

She wrote about the ice. The light that didn’t behave like any light she’d shot before. The way her lenses fogged solid the second she came in from the cold. The people.

The penguins.

She wrote about the penguins a lot.

I’d always been good at talking. Good enough to charm a room, argue a man down, talk my way sideways out of anything I didn’t want to say straight.

Writing to her was different.

The screen didn’t let me fix anything after. Once the words were down and sent, they stayed there. No walking them back. No softening them with a look.

So I sat with drafts longer than I’d ever sat with anything I said aloud. Then sent them anyway.

The alternative was not saying it, and I was done with that.

Mostly done.

I didn’t tell her I’d quit eating at the table. Didn’t tell her I’d stopped shaving because there wasn’t anybody left to be presentable for. Didn’t tell her the house had gotten so quiet I’d taken to leaving the radio on for a chicken.

She had a job to do at the bottom of the world. She didn’t need to be hauling me around while she did it.

So I told her about the shop. Carter’s new girl, who was either a saint or hadn’t been paying attention. The weather, which was always the same thing, but she’d asked, so I gave it to her.

Dolores made every email.

So did Harry.

Then one night, I told her I missed her.

Just once.

It was late, after a Tuesday that had gone bad. Harry had been agitated, somewhere far off and angry about it. Called me by my grandfather’s name, then got mad when I didn’t answer, like I was the one who’d gotten it wrong.

I came home and sat in the dark kitchen a long time before I opened the laptop.

The house is just as quiet as I thought it would be, I wrote. I miss you.

She didn’t answer for twelve hours.

Satellite windows.

When she did, it was short.

I know. I’m sorry.

I sat with that for a while, trying to work out what she was apologizing for.

Being gone.

Being the reason quiet had turned into absence.