Chương 4
The number was unknown.
He almost ignored it.
Almost.
"Hello?"
There was a pause.
Then a man's voice answered.
A voice Daniel had not heard in twenty-three years.
"Daniel?"
His hand tightened around the phone.
He could not speak.
The voice continued.
"I don't know what your mother told you."
Daniel stared at the floor.
"Who is this?"
Another pause.
Longer this time.
"I think you know."
Daniel closed his eyes.
The house suddenly felt smaller.
The walls that had protected him for years felt like they were moving closer.
The man on the phone breathed out slowly.
"I should have called you sooner."
Daniel looked at the letter sitting on the kitchen table.
The one sentence remained in his mind.
Ask him what happened.
And for the first time in twenty-three years, Daniel was afraid of getting the answer.
"Daniel."
The voice on the phone sounded older than the voice that lived in his memory.
The boy who had watched his father walk away had imagined this moment so many times that reality felt strangely unprepared.
In every version, there had been anger.
A speech.
A list of accusations saved for decades.
Instead, Daniel stood in his mother's hallway with one hand pressed against a piece of damaged wood and could not find a single sentence.
"Say something," the man whispered.
Daniel swallowed.
"Where are you?"
Another pause.
"That isn't the first question I expected."
"It is the one I asked."
The man exhaled.
"I know."
Daniel looked toward the kitchen table.
The letter sat there exactly where he had left it.
A few hours earlier, it had been nothing more than paper.
Now it felt like evidence from a trial where everyone involved had already died except him.
"How did you get this number?"
"I called your mother's phone months ago."
Daniel frowned.
"What?"
"I didn't know she was gone."
The answer landed harder than he expected.
Not because it was surprising.
Because it sounded human.
A person who did not know.
A person who had been somewhere else while Daniel had been standing beside a hospital bed, signing papers, making arrangements, choosing flowers.
"You called her after she died?"
"No."
The man's voice became quieter.
"I called before."
Daniel looked down.
The floor beneath him suddenly felt uneven.
"Why?"
The man did not answer immediately.
Daniel hated that.
He hated how everyone in his life seemed to need time before telling him things.
His mother had waited twenty-three years.
Marcus had waited years.
Now this man was doing the same thing after only a few seconds.
"Because I wanted to know if you were okay."
Daniel laughed once.
It came out without humor.
"You wanted to know if I was okay?"
"Yes."
"After twenty-three years?"
"I know how it sounds."
"No, you don't."
The words came faster than Daniel intended.
The anger had been sitting so close to the surface that he barely had to reach for it.
"You don't get to disappear and then call me to ask if I'm okay."
The man stayed silent.
For some reason, that made Daniel more frustrated.
He wanted an excuse.
A bad one would have been better.
He wanted something he could reject.
Something simple.
"You should be angry," the man finally said.
Daniel gripped the phone tighter.
"I am."
"I know."
"No, you don't."
A car passed outside, its headlights briefly moving across the walls.
Daniel watched the light disappear.
For a second, he was eight years old again, standing in the same hallway, waiting for a car that never came back.
"Tell me your name," Daniel said.
The silence on the other end changed.
Not longer.
Different.
"My name?"
"Yes."
"You know my name."
"Your name isn't the question."
The man breathed in slowly.
"I'm David."
Daniel closed his eyes.
David.
A name he had heard hundreds of times in his own thoughts without ever speaking aloud.
A name attached to old photographs.
A name attached to a watch that no longer worked.
A name attached to a door closing before sunrise.
"Where are you?"
"Daniel."
"Where are you?"
"I don't think you should come here tonight."
That answer told Daniel more than any explanation could have.
"You know where I live."
"I know where your mother lived."
"That's not what I asked."
David said nothing.
Daniel walked into the kitchen.
The old refrigerator hummed.
A dish towel hung crookedly from the oven handle.
His mother's grocery list from months ago was still held to the side of the fridge by a magnet shaped like a yellow bird.
She had written down milk, bread, tomatoes, and batteries.
Ordinary things.
Things that had mattered when she believed she would have more ordinary days.
"Did you talk to her before she died?"
The question surprised even Daniel.
The silence afterward felt like an answer.
"Yes."
"When?"
"Three weeks before."
Daniel stopped moving.
"She never told me."
"I know."
"How?"
"Because she asked me not to contact you."
The anger changed shape.
It became something heavier.
Something closer to grief.
"Why would she do that?"
David's voice lowered.
"Because she was afraid."
"Of what?"
"You."
Daniel stared at the table.
The answer felt impossible.
His mother had been afraid of storms.
She had been afraid of hospitals.
She had been afraid of leaving the stove on.
She had not been afraid of him.
"What does that mean?"
"It means she knew you."
Daniel almost smiled.
"That is not an answer."
"No."
David paused.
"It's the truth."
The word bothered him again.
Truth.
Everyone loved using it.
Everyone seemed to believe they were carrying the only piece that mattered.
"What did she tell you?"
"She said if you ever found out, you would go looking for answers."
"She was right."
"She said you would think knowing everything would fix something."
Daniel looked away.
The sentence hurt because it sounded like his mother.
Not cruel.
Not careless.
Just tired.
"Did she say I was wrong?"
David took a moment.
May you like
"No."
The honesty caught him.
