Page 103 of This Time Around
He could see her face in the glow from his phone screen, and he watched her throat move as she swallowed. “Do you want to know what it says?”
Jack stared at the screen. His thumb hovered over the options. Play. Call back. Delete.
He stared at them, watching as his vision blurred and the choices jumbled together. Play. Call back. Delete.
“No,” he said.
Then he pressed his thumb to the screen, making his choice with a single touch.
Delete.
The words vanished from the screen, and Jack set the phone back down on the nightstand, then pulled Allie against him.
The next time Jack woke up, light seeped through his eyelids despite the faded brocade drapes Allie had drawn the night before. With his eyes still closed, he reached out for her, craving the feel of her skin and the warmth of her body on a lazy Saturday morning.
But his palm found only the empty sheet.
He opened his eyes and glanced at the clock on the wall. It was just after seven, which seemed odd. Allie had never been a morning person, preferring to snooze until ten or eleven in their cozy little college apartment.
He looked over at the door to the bathroom and saw it wide open. While Allie might have changed a lot over the years, there was no way she’d ever be a woman who’d pee with the door open. He glanced around the room, taking inventory. Her phone was on the nightstand, right next to his. He thought about the deleted voicemail from his father and felt a cold tingle in the center of his chest.
He rolled over, putting his back to the phone and looking around for more traces of warmth. He couldn’t remember what Allie had been wearing the night before, but spotted the clothes he’d worn folded neatly on a chair beside the bed. He remembered Allie pulling the shirt off his shoulders, yanking at the buttons like his sleeves were on fire. The thought made him smile.
Feeling warmer now, he rolled over again and grabbed his phone, intending to send an “I love you” text to Paige or maybe scroll social media while he waited for Allie to return.
Instead, he found himself staring at a text message from his father.
Please call. I’ve been a shitty dad, but I have something to tell you.
Jack stared at the words, breathing in and out while he waited to see how they’d register with him. He felt—nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not anger, not sadness, not nostalgia. Just a total absence of any feeling whatsoever.
He started to delete the message, then stopped. Maybe he’d want to reply later. Something terse and unsentimental, or maybe a dismissive note saying he was much too busy for phone calls.
Pushing thoughts of his father from his mind, Jack sat up and ran his fingers through his hair. Maybe Allie got hungry and decided to make breakfast, or maybe she was watching YouTube videos about caulking bathtubs or polishing doorknobs. It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that she was refinishing the dining room table right now.
He got up and pulled his jeans on, not bothering with shoes or a shirt. It felt warm in the house, and as far as he knew, the two of them had the place to themselves until evening.
“Allie?”
His voice bounced off the parlor walls as he moved into the kitchen. No sign of her there, though he noticed she’d cleaned up after their midnight razor clam binge. Two of the cats swished through his ankles, but nobody yowled for their breakfast. Allie must have fed them already.
He moved from room to room, scoping out the whole first floor before heading upstairs to poke around the second floor.
“Allie?”
Still no response, but he felt a gust of cool air as he emerged onto the third floor. He glanced up to see the attic door open and the ladder propped open beneath it.
He made his way to it, keeping his steps quiet as he climbed. It felt chillier up here, and he already regretted not pulling on his shirt or socks. He suppressed a shiver as he boosted himself through the opening and looked around.
Allie sat leaning against the trunk, and Jack felt a flicker of annoyance. Two weeks, and the trunk full of cash was still just sitting there. She had her back to it, and it seemed symbolic somehow. Like she hoped it might vanish altogether if she pretended it wasn’t there.
She looked up then, and her green eyes went wide. Then she smiled. “Jack. You startled me. Everything okay?”
Something about her smile seemed off, but maybe it was just early. He clambered the rest of the way into the attic and padded across the beams to sit beside her. She wore a beige cashmere cardigan that looked like something her mother might’ve owned, and Jack brushed the fabric aside to plant a kiss on her bare shoulder.
“You’re up early,” he murmured as he slid the cashmere back in place.
“A woodpecker woke me up right at dawn,” she said. “Figured I’d come up here and get some work done.”
