Page 62 of Befriending the Bear
CALLOWAY
It had been a week since the phone call with my mother, and something in me had settled.
Not everything, of course. There were still moments where the echo of her voice tried to creep back in, offering doubts in the form of concern, clinging like the last stubborn leaves on the maple outside my window. But something fundamental had eased within me—like the knot I’d been carrying under my ribs for forty-three years had finally begun to loosen.
I wasn’t fixed. That was never the point.
I was healing.
The morning light filtered through the front windows of the cottage, soft and golden, highlighting the fine dust floating lazily in the air. It was one of those rare, clear winter days in Forestville, where the frost didn’t bite so much as kiss, and the sky stretched out blue as cornflowers.
Fraser had gone up to the Bear Creek Campground early to help Macallister take down some fallen trees. He’d been there yesterday as well, and he’d loved it. On good leg days, he could still do that kind of work, albeit slower, and he told me he likedthe solitude of it, the camaraderie of working beside someone who understood wear and tear in bones and in memory. I understood that.
I stood at the kitchen window, watching birds flitter around the feeder I’d hung. A nuthatch landed, flipped upside down on the suet cage, and blinked one shiny black eye at me.
“You and me both,” I murmured to the glass. “Always hanging on in strange ways.”
I felt different this week. It wasn’t something I could show or explain. But I’d woken up without that first moment of guilt. I’d brewed my tea without the old ache in my chest. I didn’t count the days anymore. Not since Fraser. Not since I’d written aboutAfter.
It turned out that the chapter had been the dam holding everything back. Once I’d written it—really written it, not just dodged around the grief with metaphor and implication—it had all changed. The rest of the memoir flowed like thaw water. I wasn’t writing for anyone else anymore. There wasn’t a deadline. No agent. No workshop peers to impress.
Just the truth. Just me on a page, finally whole.
My phone rang. Janet. Where I normally would’ve let it go to voicemail, I now didn’t hesitate.
“Hi, J-janet.”
“Calloway.” The shock in her voice that she actually had me on the line was obvious. “How are you, honey?”
“I w-wrote something,” I said.
“You—what? You mean the chapter?”
“M-m-more than the chapter,” I said. “I finished the whole thing.”
The line went utterly silent for a moment, the kind of quiet that prickled through the air like anticipation before a storm. Then: “Calloway…are you serious?”
“I am.” I stepped away from the window and leaned against the countertop, the wood cool beneath my fingertips. My voice was steady, even with the occasional hitch. “I d-don’t know if it’s publishable or even p-p-polished. But it’s done. It’s mine. And I think… I think I’m p-proud of it.”
Janet let out a soft laugh. Relief, maybe, or joy. Or both. “God. I’ve waited so long to hear you say that. I don’t care what shape it’s in, I just want to read it.”
“You’ll g-get it. I just w-want to do a thorough r-read through. You’ll b-be the first.”
“I’m honored.”
“Th-thank you for b-being so patient.”
She clicked her tongue. “Of course, darling. You sound different.”
Wasn’t it telling how easily she’d picked up on that? Apparently, even over the phone, the difference was audible. “I feel it. Something s-shifted. The book changed b-because I changed.”
There was a beat of silence, and then, softly, “Does this mean you’re ready to submit the piece for the anthology?”
I laughed, a little shaky but genuine. “Yes. I think I am.”
“Okay,” she said, a smile in her voice. “Send it today?”
“Just let m-me finish my tea.”
