Page 101 of Smoke and Roses

“I wanted to see our initials in the barn before I called her.” I swallow, and it hurts. “I haven’t called her yet, Carol. I keep chickening out.”

Carol looks down at her hands.

“I haven’t either,” she says.

We look at each other.

“She wrote me a letter too,” Carol says. “Hank brought it Wednesday. She said she was sorry. She said she wants to come home, if I’ll have her.” She presses her lips together. “I’ve read it fifty times, and I can’t make myself pick up the phone. I’m so afraid she’ll hear how angry I was all those years.”

“She won’t,” I say. “Carol, she won’t.”

“How do you know?”

I look at Travis. His thumb is still moving on my palm.

“Because she named her little girl after me,” I say. “And I’d bet anything she named the other one after you.”

Carol stares at me. Then she opens her purse, takes out a folded letter and reads through it fast. When she gets to the end, she stops, and her hand goes to her mouth.

“Caroline,” she whispers. “The baby’s name is Caroline. Oh, God. I read it fifty times, and I didn’t—I thought it was just a name⁠—”

She presses the letter flat against her chest with both hands and closes her eyes.

I sit up in the hospital bed, oxygen tubing and all, and put my arms around Danielle’s mom. Travis looks at the ceiling to give us some privacy.

When she lets go, Carol smooths her hair and sits up straight. “Well,” she says. “I think it’s time.”

“Time?”

She looks at my phone on the tray table. Then at me.

“Together,” she says. “Right now. You and me. Before either one of us can chicken out again.”

My pulse jumps so hard the machine on my finger starts beeping.

Travis looks at the machine, then at me, and raises one eyebrow. I know exactly what he’s asking. Does he stay, or does he go?

I squeeze his hand and don’t let go.

I pick up my phone and find the number from the sunflower card, the one I typed into my contacts three days ago and never pressed. Danny.

I put it on speaker and set it on the blanket between me and Carol.

And I press it.

Chapter Thirty-Four

It rings once.

Lindsey’s hand crushes mine on top of the hospital blanket. Carol has both hands pressed flat over her mouth. The machine on Lindsey’s finger is beeping fast.

It rings twice.

Then a click.

“Hello?”

It’s a woman’s voice. She sounds a little out of breath, like she ran for the phone. There are kids yelling somewhere behind her, a TV going, a dog barking.