Page 102 of Smoke and Roses

Lindsey opens her mouth, but nothing comes out.

“Hello?” the woman says again. Then her voice changes, and she sounds careful, like she’s afraid to ask. “Is this a Utah number?”

Lindsey looks at me. Her eyes are huge and full of tears.

I lean down close to her ear.

“Just say hi,” I whisper.

She makes a sound that’s half a laugh and half a sob.

“Hi,” she says to the phone. It comes out a croak. “Hi, Danny. It’s me.”

For a second there’s no sound on the other end of the line at all.

Then something crashes, like somebody dropped a dish. A kid yells, “Mom?” A man’s voice, farther off, says, “Dani? Dani, what happened?” And then a woman is sobbing, loud and open, the way you cry when you’ve been holding it in for years.

“Linds,” she says. “Oh my God. Linds.”

She says it again and again, like she can’t believe she gets to.

Lindsey is crying so hard she can’t talk. Carol is shredding a tissue in her lap. I sit in my plastic chair with my hand under Lindsey’s and look up at the ceiling tiles of McKay-Dee Hospital and count them, because if I don’t, I’m going to lose it too.

I’ve been in a lot of hard rooms. I’ve never been in one like this.

“I’m sorry,” Danielle says through the phone. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I didn’t say goodbye. I couldn’t, Linds. He said he’d—he said⁠—”

“I know,” Lindsey says. “I know, Danny. I read your diary. Hank told me. I know.”

“I wanted to. I sat in your grandma’s parking lot for twenty minutes that night. I could see your light on upstairs. I almost⁠—”

“I’m sorry I didn’t get in the car,” Lindsey says, all in a rush.

The line goes quiet.

“What?” Danielle says.

“That April. You asked me to go to Portland with you right then, not after graduation. And I said no. I said my grandma needed me. I said we had a plan. If I’d just gotten in the car, Danny, you wouldn’t have had to do it alone. You wouldn’t have had to⁠—”

“Lindsey North,” Danielle says, sharp, through her tears. “You stop that right now.”

Lindsey stops.

“You were seventeen,” Danielle says. “Your grandma’s hip was bad. You were running the shop by yourself after school. If you’d gotten in that car, Brett would have come after both of us. I knew that. That’s why I didn’t ask you twice.” She takes a long, shaky breath. “You stayed, Linds. You stayed and took care of everybody. That’s who you are. It’s who you always were. I didn’t need you to come with me. I needed you to be there when I came back.”

Lindsey puts her face in her free hand.

I’ve been telling her that same thing for two months. It means more coming from Danielle, and that’s the way it should be.

Carol drops the tissue and leans toward the phone.

“Danielle,” she says.

This time nothing comes back down the line. No kids. No TV. Just breathing.

“Mom?” Danielle whispers.

“Hi, baby,” Carol says.