Page 105 of From Air

“I didn’t call him.” She cringes. “I texted him.”

“Mel!”

“Don’t ‘Mel’ me. Do you have any idea how freaked out I was when you didn’t call me back? And the next thing I knew, the hospital was calling me because I’m your emergency contact. I thought for sure you’d been in a car accident.”

“What did he say?”

“What?”

“Calvin. Did he respond to your text?”

“He’s probably on a fire,” Melissa says, but it does little to ease the ache in my chest.

That’s code forhe hasn’t responded. It’s been three days since the incident.

“Jamie, you have to tell me about the bear guy. You were in a panic the day you called me. You said he thought you’re his wife or daughter?”

“Dwight,” I murmur before inhaling and sorting through the events of the past few days. “He asked me about his sister, whom he called my aunt. After I said I hadn’t seen her, he proceeded to tell me about a scar on her face going from her eye to her jawbone.” I wait for Melissa to react.

She squints before returning a cautious nod.

“My mom had that same scar.”

“I know. But I don’t think she was the only person with a scar from her eye to her jaw.”

“He said his sister stuttered when she was younger, and their mom made her take singing lessons to help. And it cured the stutter.”

“Did your mom stutter when she was younger?” she asks, slightly laughing, like it’s impossible.

“Yes.”

Melissa’s smile dissolves. “That’s ... freaky.” She taps the pads of her fingers on her lips. “Did your mom have siblings?”

“No.”

“Well, there you go. It’s a freakish coincidence, and that’s where it ends. Again, people share similar scars. Some people stutter. And I bet singing is a common treatment for stuttering.”

“Stuttering is four times as common in men,” I counter.

“But clearly, women can stutter.”

“He said, despite the singing lessons, his sister was a terrible singer. My mom said the same thing about herself.”

Melissa drums her fingers on her legs. “Most people are terrible singers.”

“His sister’s name was Samantha.”

“Your mom’s name was Lauren.”

I relinquish a slow nod. “Her middle name was Samantha.”

“That’s—”

“Stop,” I say. “Just stop trying to pretend it’s impossible or highly improbable when the truth is ...” Swallowing hard, I look around the room. “I don’t know the truth. And I don’t know why my mom would have lied to me—no. Not just lied to me. It’s possible she made up a whole new story. And she changed her name. That makes no sense. But it also doesn’t make sense that everything Dwight said is just a coincidence. He knows virtually nothing about me, so he wasn’t intentionally doing it to freak me out. Which only leaves one logical explanation.”

“Nothing about this is logical, Jamie.”

“Was she so embarrassed that her brother did something so awful that she wanted to completely cut herself off from him and the rest of the family, if there was other family? And what about my dad? Did he know? I would have been ...” I try to remember how long Dwight has been in the psych ward. “I would have been two? Three? And my dad died when I was five.”

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