Page 13 of Top Shelf

My hand moves up to rub my chest. “I remember.”

Inside the clinic, Heidi is probably sitting in front of Moreno with a Finland-shaped coffee stain on her sleeve, trying to convince him to believe in what she has built.

My mother breathes out. “You are not alone in this.”

“I know.” I watch a woman in scrubs pass the clinic window. Not Heidi.

“You say that too quickly.”

“Because I know.”

“Because you want the conversation to move away from feelings.”

“That also.”

This time, her laugh is louder. Warmer. It reaches through the phone and presses against the ache in me.

“Who was the woman?”

I go still. “What woman?”

“Viktor.” She tuts. “The one with the PowerPoint haunting.”

I should not have told her that.

“She is a doctor of physical therapy.” I tilt my head back and look at the clear morning sky. “She was my physical therapist when I was injured.”

“Was?”

“Yes.”

“What is she now?”

Now she is the woman whose voice just filled my helmet, and who held onto me like she did not trust the road but maybe trusted me. The woman who can make a man twice her size look small with one sentence and then look at clinic doors like her courage needs a boost.

“Now she is late for a meeting,” I say.

Mamma is quiet, and I wait. “You are very good at giving answers that are shaped like doors without handles.”

“Doors are useful.”

“Not handle-less ones.”

I do not answer that. I am outside a clinic with Heidi Grant’s laugh still in my ears and my grandfather’s will tightening around my throat.

“I will think,” I finally say.

“That is what worries me.”

“It should.”

“Viktor.”

“I am joking.”

“No, you are not.”

No. I am not.