“I don’t know who you are.”
“I’m Wallace. I’m here to take you home. See? Sign right here says so.”
Edith kept her face up to the sound of his speaking but clutched both hands on her patent-leather purse, as though feeling for some makeshift weapon within it. Wallace’s mild voice washed in, becoming emphatic.
“There’s a big lunch waiting, Edith. We’re roasting all kinds of vegetables and brewing a vat of cider. We built you a bed from cedar and painted it yellow. There’s a fireplace and a porch with a chair just for you, and if you want, I’ll show you the place in the woods where I keep a hammock. There are cats, and some are sweet and some spend most days exploring on their own. We stay quiet most of the time, so we can always hear the river. Everything you’ll need is close by, and the water is clean. Would you like to come see?”
He put his hand out to her, spread it flat and wide, and acknowledged Adeleine—who blushed in the uncertainty of her part in all of it—with a wink. Edith shuffled across the pavement with a certain dignity, her jaw bobbing as she looked left and right, and when they reached the passenger side of Wallace’s truck, he pressed down on the silver handle, led the door’s opening as if conducting the first note of an opera.
THOUGH EDWARD HAD PREPARED his voice, called on notes of casual competence, he answered as though being held over a fire.
“Um, hello,” she said.
“Helena! It’s Edward!” His whole body protested the moment, and he tried to compensate for anxiety with enthusiasm.
“Boy howdy and Jesus Christ. I knew I recognized the number. I just didn’t know whose it was.”
“Well.”
“Well? You called me.”
“Right. How are you?”
“As in . . . how have the last ten years treated me? Or, right in this moment, am I good or bad? Have I consumed any above-average fusion cuisine recently? Is the weather decent?”
“Okay—I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have called. But listen, I’m actually calling about an extremely important issue, one that’s keeping me up nights, and that’s—joint health.”
“What?”
“Are you taking care of your joints? Enough omega-threes in your life?”
“I’m not going to laugh. You’re very funny, but I’m not going to.”
“I’m not laughing. Do you hear me laughing? I cannot stress enough the crucial nature of knee bends. How would you like to spend your middle age? The choice is yours.”
“Where are you, Edward? What are you doing? Anything? Why are you calling?”
“I’m, uh—”
“Are you right where I left you?”
“Actually, I’m in Tennessee.”
“What?” The genuine surprise in her voice exposed a warmth previously hidden, and he was hit by the ghost of their dynamic, arriving at punch lines together at the dinner table, clutching at each other’s elbows in glee.
“Yeah. The Smoky Mountains. But specifically, the side of some road, knee-deep in all kinds of weird grass I’ve never seen before. I’m here to see—they’re called synchronous fireflies, and they only do this once a year, only here and somewhere in the Philippines, and they light up all at once, rhythmically, in a dance. It’s like the destination rave for bugs.”
“Are you fucking with me?”
“No.”
“Why are you there?”
“Um, I’m here with my neighbor. Well, he’s my friend. He’s also a disabled thirty-three-year-old who plays the electronic keyboard pretty well and owns several plastic swords. He’s very generous and wants to talk to everyone, always, and has barely left my apartment in the last six months. But we’re getting evicted. Edith—you remember her?”
“She was amazing. She used to make me tea when you and I fought.”
“Really?”
“Really. I farted while crying once and she winked at me.”
“Wow. Well, she’s essentially lost it—she went from forgetful to paranoid overnight—and her son’s kicking us all out, so me and my neighbor and his sister decided to take this trip.”
“I remain amazed.”
“He wanted to come here more than I want . . . I don’t know. I guess more than I’ve ever wanted anything. Except you.”
She grunted with an immediate remorse, as though seeing herself lock the keys in the car. “This isn’t fair. You can’t call after years and say that, like we’re twenty-six and imagining the rest of our lives on someone else’s fire escape. I’ve built things, Edward. I have a—”
As though on cue, the sound of a child, its urgent question. It wanted her, belonged to her. He waited as she murmured sweet instruction in a voice he had never heard, her hand over the phone, and the fact of it banished anything he might have said. He thought he heard her say, “Can you show me what you did with the blue paper?” And then, “No, that’s not for eating.