The Man I Love (The Fish Tales, #1)(133)

“I’m sorry, I caught you off guard,” he said. “Honestly, Dais, I was calling your mother. I didn’t imagine you’d answer the phone.”

“You think about someday, you prepare mentally for someday. But someday is never today. And now it is.”

“I know.”

“I’ve imagined this call for twelve years. Now you’re on the phone and I’m completely at a loss. I’ve forgotten all my lines.”

“When you imagined this,” he said. “What did you have me saying?”

Another heavy sigh, like a small windstorm in his ear.

“Maybe we shouldn’t jump right into it,” he said quickly.

“Well for f*ck’s sake, I don’t think you called me for my chili recipe. You want to jump into small talk? Really? How’s the weather up there? You watch the game today—how about them Broncos, huh?”

He laughed.

“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll jump immediately into it because you could disappear again.”

“I won’t.”

“Oh, won’t you? You’re really good at it.”

“I know. And I’m sorry, truly sorry it took me this long…to grow up.”

An abyss of silence on the other end which he didn’t know how to interpret, so he rushed to fill it up with words. “I am not good at disappearing, Dais. I am spectacular at it. I made a conscious choice to shut down and ignore you all these years. And the last time you called, and I hung up on you? It was obnoxious. And cowardly. I’m sorry. And I appreciate you not slamming down the phone on me now because, well, I kind of deserve it.”

More silence, then Daisy whispered, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” It felt lame in his mouth, almost pompous. Doing her some kind of favor. It wasn’t the tone he wanted to set.

“God, if I can’t smoke then I need to make some tea.”

“All right.”

“I mean, I need to put the phone down, put the kettle on and breathe.”

“All right.”

“So give me your phone number and I will call you back”

He felt a stab of panic at the thought of severing the connection. “You can’t take me with you?” he asked, cringing at how pathetic he sounded.

“No,” she said. “Fish, I’m glad you called tonight. But all those years without a word… They’re kind of hard to just brush aside.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“So, I am testing you. May I?”

“You’re testing I won’t go away?”

“Frankly, yes. I waited twelve years for you to call. Now you can wait while I make a cup of tea and throw up.”

He took a deep breath and gave her his number. “That’s my home line. 555-0411 is my cell, same area code. And there’s a phone booth downstairs. If I jump out the window I’ll land right by it so let me give you the number.”

She laughed. “Don’t jump. I’ll come back. I mean, I’ll call you back.”

“I am not leaving. I don’t care if the house catches fire.”

“All right. I’ll talk to you in a bit.”

Once she hung up, Erik collapsed on his back again, the breath rushing out of his lungs. “What just happened?” he asked the ceiling.

He sat up. She was making tea. Good idea. He pattered into the kitchen, pulled the kettle onto a front burner and lit it, busied himself with mug, teabags and milk. He stared at the blue flames licking the edges of the kettle. He could feel his body on high alert, the minute twitches of his muscles, his stomach skittering and wobbling like a sick gyroscope. And yet. Another sensation. Something out of the past. A more profound rearrangement, somewhere deep in his psyche, the atoms and elements of his being sorting themselves out, shifting into the places where they belonged. He was realigning, the compass of his soul lining up with True North.

I called her.

I heard her voice. We spoke. We will speak again.

It’s today.

He was meant to do this. It was today and he was exactly where he was supposed to be.

Living the truth. And being tested.

He sat down, stared at the phone and waited for the water to boil. Waited for Daisy to come back.





Human Cocaine


The conversation was a long and arduous exorcism. Sprawled in bed later, limp and exhausted, his soul rid of demons and his bones drained of their marrow, Erik could keep only a few parts intact and clear in his head. But he remembered what was important.

A strange reluctance gripped him when he faced the opportunity to tell her how she had hurt him. The time was here, he was ready and she was listening, but still he hesitated. It was a conscious effort to peel his fingers back from the pain he had clutched tight all these years. A miserly compulsion to continue hoarding and hiding the stash.

Hurt, he remembered, was a habit.

Say it.

His mouth closed up in his hand, he could feel the command of his brain traveling along synapses and nerves, engaging the muscles in his jaw, making his tongue form words and his lungs push air behind them.

Tell her. What are you waiting for?

He dragged his hand away from his mouth. “What happened that day killed me,” he said.