“Of course, mate. Of course.”
As I hang up I realize, perhaps too late, that friends like Steve are hard to come by.
59.
Callie
Sitting up, I let my eyes find the clock. It’s two a.m., and I’ve been jolted into consciousness by the buzzing of my phone.
Joel is comatose next to me. I reach over with my free hand and gently slide the headphones from around his face. He must have fallen asleep with them on.
I stare at his shut notebook for a moment, imagining the words it must contain about me. I consider how easily I could change the course of my own future just by turning a page.
“I checked Grace’s voice mail,” Ben says. “What was all that about you and Joel?”
Oh, no. He checks her messages.
“Sorry,” I whisper, performing a tiny face-palm. “You can just delete it.” A couple of weeks have passed since I left that message, and I’d forgotten about it.
I climb out of bed and pad through to the living room, Murphy at my heels. The night air is congested with humidity, like a swimming-pool changing room. I perch between the pots on the windowsill and tilt the blinds so I can see the night sky.
“I need to know you’re okay,” Ben says.
“I’m okay.”
He waits a beat. “You were right, you know.”
“About what?”
“What you said in your message. When people say they want to die doing something they love, what they really mean is they don’t want to know it’s coming.”
It was true that Grace had always said that, which is why I sometimes wonder if she should have died while she was climbing Table Mountain with Ben, or running that half marathon in Lanzarote. I still don’t know the answer—though I do know she shouldn’t have died at the hands of someone else as she was rushing along that awful backstreet, late for Pilates. But I guess that’s life’s disquieting reality—you don’t get to choose.
I curse my own insensitivity. “I’m sorry, Ben. I didn’t think.”
“Cal, tell me to mind my own business if you like, but... what’s going on with you and Joel?”
His question, though well-intended, feels sharp as a dart. “It’s complicated” is all I say, a feeble oversimplification.
“All right. But let me just say this. If you’ve found true love, Cal, don’t let it go. You have no idea...” He skips a breath or two. “None of us know what we’ve got till it’s gone. Yes, it’s a cliché, but that’s because it’s true.”
My mind a cyclone, I think of Joel. “Ben, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Do you really believe... do you believe it was better Grace went quickly? Or do you wish you’d had more time, you know, to... prepare?”
“Prepare like... cancer?”
“Sorry,” I murmur. “You don’t have to answer, if you don’t want.”
“No, it’s all right. If I’m honest, Cal, where Grace was concerned, I’d have to say ignorance was bliss. Yes, it was a shock when she died. Brutal. It felt as if that bastard had plowed into every one of us. But I don’t think Grace could have handled a death sentence.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“You’re not ill, are you?” Ben’s voice becomes a plucked string of fear.
“Not as far as I know.”
