Page 149 of Skate the Line

Ellie’s eyebrows cave. “My daddy isn’t pretty.”

Tell that to the entire female population, kid.

After several minutes of my nana and Ellie chatting about all sorts of things, I finally pull the phone back.

“Okay, Nana. I have to watch this game with Ellie before she heads to bed.”

“I have the game on too!” she says.

I’m shocked. “The Blue Devils?”

She nods. “I have to keep up with them now that you’re all the way in Chicago.” Her mouth forms a line. “Oh, wait a second. Before you go…”

Worry fills me from the look of concern on her face.

“Is something wrong?” I quickly ask.

The puck drops on the TV, but I keep my attention on the phone. Ellie has crawled toward the foot of the bed. I tell her I’m going to get us some popcorn and that I’ll be right back.

“Nana?”

“Yes, honey. Everything is great here. It’s just that I had a visitor the other day.”

I grab a bowl from the cabinet and put a bag of popcorn into the microwave. “A visitor? Who? One of your friends?”

She laughs. “All my friends are living in this place with me. This was someone looking for you.”

I do a very good job at hiding the panic. “For me?”

My blood pressure spikes. Suddenly, I feel like one of those kernels about to pop in the microwave.

“Yes. It was a woman.”

Oh, thank god.

I press my hand to my heart. “Oh, okay. Who was it?”

“Goodness, I can’t remember.”

Not wanting her to feel bad for her short-term memory loss, I shake my head. “Oh, don’t worry about it. I’m sure it was an old friend or something.”

I havenoidea who would be stopping in to the nursing home to look for me. Not many people know that my nana is there or that I’ve moved.

“If I remember, I’ll give you a jingle.”

I laugh. “Okay, Nana. Sounds good. I love you.”

“I love you too, sweetheart. I’ll talk to you next week?”

I nod with a smile and hang up.

Ellie is sitting on her knees with her eyes trained to the TV.

“How’s it going?”

She eyes the popcorn greedily. “Daddy is doing so good! He already got a point!”

I climb beside Ellie. We lie at the foot of the bed with our feet up in the air and the bowl of popcorn in between us.

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