Landline(50)

And you’ve painted a mural on every west-facing wall.

And it isn’t all bad, I promise. I swear to you.

You might not be actively, thoughtfully happy 70 to 80 percent of the time, but maybe you wouldn’t be anyway. And even when you’re sad, Neal—even when you’re falling asleep at the other side of the bed—I think you’re happy, too. About some things. About a few things.

I promise it’s not all bad.

“Georgie? Are you still there?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought you fell asleep.”

“I’m awake. It’s only ten here.”

“I was saying that I’d have to wear a gun—would that bother you?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never thought about it. It’s hard to imagine you with a gun.” Neal didn’t even kill spiders. He teased them onto a piece of paper, then set them down gently on the porch. “Would it bother you?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe. I’ve always hated guns.”

“I love you,” she said.

“Because I hate guns?”

“Because everything.”

“Because everything.” She could hear Neal almost smiling. She could almost see him, too.

No . . .

Georgie was picturing her Neal. Her almost-forty Neal. Leaner. Sharper. With longer hair and crow’s-feet and a bit of gray in the beard he grew every winter. “What passes for winter,” he’d say. “My children are never going to know what it’s like to come in from the cold and feel the warmth work its way back into their fingers.”

“It sounds like you’re saying they’re never going to get frostbite.”

“I can’t have this conversation with someone who’s never built a snowman.”

“Our kids have seen snow.”

“At Disneyland, Georgie. That’s just soap bubbles.”

“They don’t know the difference.”

“What if it was Persephone who kidnapped Hades . . .”

“You’re talking fancy again.”

Her Neal had lost his baby fat, his soft belly and hobbity hint of a double chin.

Once Alice was born, Neal took up cycling. He went everywhere by bicycle now, hauling a bright yellow trailer. Hauling two little girls, bags of groceries, stuffed animals, stacks of library books . . .

Working motherhood had made Georgie shapeless and limp, and perpetually tired-looking. She never got enough sleep anymore. And she’d never gotten her waist back—or gotten around to buying new clothes for this new (not so new anymore, really) reality. Georgie hadn’t even resized her wedding ring after it got too tight to wear during her last pregnancy. It sat in a china saucer on their dresser.

While Neal had come into focus over the years—clean-jawed, clear-eyed—Georgie had lost her own reflection in the mirror.

Sometimes, when she had a day off, they’d walk to the park, the four of them, and Georgie would see how the nannies and stay-at-home moms looked at Neal. That handsome dad with the blue eyes and stubbly dimples and the two laughing, doll-faced satellites.

“Georgie? Am I losing you?”

“No.” She pressed the phone to her ear. “I’m here.”

“Do we have a bad connection?”

This person on the other end of the line was Neal as he was. Before he was quite hers. When he was still circling the possibility of Georgie. This Neal was harsher. Paler. Had a shorter temper. But this Neal hadn’t given up on her yet. This Neal still looked at Georgie like she was something brand-new and supernatural. He was still surprised by her, delighted with her.

Even now, as frustrated as he was.

Even now, ten states away and half done with her, this Neal still thought she was better than he deserved. More than he’d ever expected life would give him.

“I love you,” she said.

“Georgie, are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.” Her voice broke. “I love you.”

“Sunshine.” Neal sounded soft, concerned. “I love you, too.”

“But not enough,” she said, “is that what you’re thinking?”

“What? No. That’s not what I’m thinking.”

“It’s what you’ve been thinking,” she said. “It’s what you thought from California to Colorado.”

“That’s not fair. . . .”

“What if you were right, Neal?”

“Georgie, please don’t cry.”

“It’s what you said, and you said that you meant it. And nothing’s changed, has it? Why aren’t we talking about this? Why are we pretending that everything’s fine? It’s not fine. You’re in Nebraska, and I’m here, and it’s Christmas, and we’re supposed to be together. You love me. But maybe it isn’t enough. That’s what you’re thinking.”

“No.” Neal cleared his throat and said it again: “No. Maybe I was thinking that. From California to Colorado. But then . . . I got tired. Literally tired—dangerously tired, and there was the thing with the aliens. And then sunrise. And the rainbows. I told you about the rainbows, right?”

“Yeah,” she said. “But I don’t understand the significance.”