He sounds exhausted, like he’s just come off a long day.
“Hi.” I elongate the syllable and make my voice extra soft. Being tired, I understand. I’m patient, compassionate. “How are you?”
“Is it too late to be calling?” he asks.
Wheel of Fortuneis down to the final bonus round. The befuddled contestant throws out her desperate guesses. “It’s only seven thirty.”
“Do you have to be up early?” he asks.
“What’s going on?” I say. If I answer his questions, I won’t be able to steer the conversation, and I need to know what I’m dealing with. “You sound—a little out of it.”
“Can you come over?”
“Edison, I—”
“Forget it,” he says. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I said that.”
He doesn’t sound right. His voice doesn’t have that cool reserve it had during our first date. Almost sleepy now, and at the cusp of some emotional edge, like he’s holding something back. I think of the sparrow bringing him cobbler. All the beautiful church ladies who smiled at him. His eyes glinting amber in the sun when he sat across from me and told me I had my own way of seeing things.
He is mine, and right now, he needs me.
“I’ll be right there,” I say. “What’s the address?”
I hurry down the stairs, and Moody and Iris look up when I reach for the doorknob. “Where are you going?” Moody asks.
I turn and look at them. Moody, whose faith in me is shaken by our sister, and Iris, who has to be in charge of everything, even though she doesn’t know shit about DNA because she’s just good at the fun parts.
When I step outside, there’s nothing they can do to stop me without blowing our cover, and this brings me profound satisfaction. I was three ounces smaller than my sisters when we were weighed at thehospital after being found, and for this, I’ve forever been labeled the baby. Being the youngest sibling is like being a kite in a tailwind, always tugged along by their whims and only worth the entertainment I can bring when it suits them. Sometimes Moody will give me a little slack, but only until Iris sinks her teeth into that soft little heart of hers and changes her mind.
They don’t deserve an explanation, and I don’t give them one. Let them spend the night conspiring about how green I am, how I’m not ready and I’m going to mess this up. I’ll show them what I can do.
When I turn onto Edison’s street, his house is the first on the left. It’s a one-story Spanish mission with a clay roof, 764 in black numerals by the door.
This is a surprise, and I’m intrigued. I was positive Edison lived in an apartment. Single, twenty-nine years old, with a car that’s old enough to legally vote. But the house is on a nice grid—a people-who-have-their-shit-together neighborhood. The kind of place that has a watch committee and an annual Christmas cookie swap. Edison is working on a contractor’s income, not salaried, which means he’s either making bank building houses or he’s good at saving his money.
The front yard is loose gravel, not a shred of grass in the entire suburb. I park beside his car and peer over the wall that borders the backyard. There’s the skeleton of a swing set, minus the actual swings, and not so much as a hedge. This could mean anything, I tell myself. Swings are hard to transport and the previous owner left it behind. Besides which, children need more than a broken swing set to entertain themselves, and the yard looks like it hasn’t been used in a long time. The lawn chairs are all stacked against the side of the house, and there’s a patio umbrella lying in the dirt with no table to hold it. A glazed ceramic toad sits watchfully by the back door.
My man is full of mystery. Whatever Edison has to tell me, I’llmeet him with compassion. On the phone, he had the voice of someone who needs to make a confession. If he’s wrong for me, I’ll make adjustments. I’ll fit into whatever path he’s on and I’ll make it work.
It would be something if he’s lured me out here, alone after sundown, because he wants to murder me. It would drastically shorten our relationship; still, I would welcome it. We would wrestle around the living room, knocking the pictures from the wall and stumbling over furniture. I’d scream, let him think he’d won, and trip and land on my back on the kitchen tiles. He would crawl over me, and when he saw the loving smile on my face, he would be so taken aback that he wouldn’t realize I’d jammed my box cutter into his kidney until he saw his blood pouring out onto my shirt. I would kiss him, hold him, tell him that I wished he weren’t so impatient—I would have liked for him to be my first.
He comes to the door before I’ve had a chance to ring the bell, and he looks so different from the man I saw this afternoon that I could almost believe I’m at the wrong house. His stubble has filled in, and his eyes are bleary, their sparkle dulled but not entirely squelched. His smile wavers and then turns into a pensive line, like guests assembling around a buffet table after a funeral.
“Edison?” I instantly wish I’d brought cookies. I should have baked something and had it wrapped in plastic in a decorative dish and ready to go. But I hadn’t expected him to look so sad.
He watches me through the screen door but doesn’t move to let me in.
“I have to tell you something,” he says. He pauses, runs his hand through his hair. The curls wrap around his fingers like they’re desperate to be touched. From where I’m standing, I can smell the alcohol, and my stomach sinks.
No. Oh no.
This man—this beautiful man who was put before me in that diner—is broken. He’s drowning in pain, and it’s so unlike me to have missed it, but all the signs were there. The warm smile on Jeannie’s face when she pushed us together on Sunday. The lost look in his eyes when I sang.
“Edison.” At my dulcet tone, his eyes fill with tears. Not a single one spills, though, and he musters up his bravado.
“I thought I was ready for this, but I’m not,” he says.
“Ready for what?” I ask.
