Harley, Becky or whatever her real name is, is lonely. We’ve all been there and we’ve all made mistakes. This wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had a stalker, but also, I’ve never put myself out there like this before.
Most of that I believe.
The rest keeps me up a while after Josie’s asleep, thinking about how many strangers are about to know the sound of my voice, and how one of them has already decided it means she knows me.
TWENTY-SIX
The cold comes in hard the week after the national news. Frost on the inside of the windows by morning, the county road slick going into town, everybody at Ralph’s talking about the weather like it’s the only thing that’s ever happened to anybody.
Harrison and Katelyn love the house they found online. He confirmed they can have a wave pool in the backyard, heated. They spend most of their time with five grandbabies, giving Peyton and Elle time to Christmas shop. And there was the day when Harrison and I babysat while everyone went shopping. It was either that or go to the mall.
Harrison has also taken to coming to the studio mid-show, with a tray full of coffee, enough for everyone. He sits there and watches the live feed through the camera, laughing at comments and sometimes responding via the 4225 West social account. According to Paige, this drives the fans wild.
Our listeners have tripled in the last week. Paige convinced Ben to put billboards up, announcing the show in certain cities. Where she came up with the idea, I’ll never know. I don’t know if it’s working or not but she and Bex say our numbers are climbing.
Josie and I are cleaning up after dinner when my phone rings. A local number I don’t know. I almost don’t answer it but my gut tells me I need to.
“Is this Liam Westbury?” The woman says my name with some hesitation.
“It is.”
She tells me her name and where she’s calling from, and then she says my father’s name. Sterling. She says a neighbor found him on his kitchen floor and called it in, that he’s stable for now, that he’s asking for no one. But my name is the one on his chart.
“You’re listed as his next of kin,” she says.
There it is. Not a wife. Not a friend. Me. The son who quit speaking to him a lifetime ago is the only name he wrote on his medical records.
I stand there with a dish towel in my hand.
“Mr. Westbury?”
“I heard you.”
I hang up, set the phone face down, and go back to drying the pan, because it’s easier than thinking about the phone call. Josie’s watching me. She doesn’t ask.
She waits until I’m ready.
“That was the hospital,” I finally say. “Sterling collapsed. A neighbor found him.”
“How bad.”
“I don’t know. He’s stable.” I put the pan in the rack. “He’s got me down as next of kin.”
She dries her hands and stands in front of me, close, not touching yet, letting me get there on my own.
“I’m not going,” I tell her, and I hear how fast it comes out, which is how I know I’ve been arguing it in my head already. “He doesn’t get to do this. Fall down and have me come running because he has no one else. He had my whole life to pick up aphone, and he fucking waited until I was vulnerable.” I push my thumbs into my eyes.
Josie wraps her arms around my waist and rests her head against my chest.
“You’ll regret it if you don’t,” she says, adding nothing else because what else is there to say.
“I hate him.”
“I know,” she says, hugging me tighter.
I clear my throat, kiss her forehead and then her lips. “I don’t want to do this, but I have to.”
She nods. “Do you want me to come?”
