“I’ll come see you soon,” I say. “Promise.”
“Can’t wait.” She murmurs something, and there’s a pause that puts all my senses on high alert. These moments can be fleeting, even on her best days. “Bring your girl, too.”
I freeze, thinking I’ve lost her to the dementia.
“What girl?”
“The one that’s kept you away when normally you’d be back hiding away in that damn van. Perfectly good house . . . I told you selling it wasn’t necessary.”
She can’t know.
“What makes you think there’s a girl?”
“What else would keep you away? Hell or high water, you’d come back. You always do, so this must be different. Bring her with. I want to meet her.”
I hear Connie in the background, and my grandmother shuffles around.
“Connie says it’s time for my dinner.”
“You know how she gets when you keep her waiting.”
Her airy laugh is music to my ears. “Don’t I ever.”
“I’ll be by soon,” I remind her, hoping if anything sticks, it’s that.
“Love you, Emmett.”
Then Connie takes the phone back.
“Her grin is wider than the prairies,” Connie says quietly. “Now, tell me how you are before I have to take her down for lunch. How bad are things if they’re keeping you from work?”
“They’re better than a few weeks ago.”
“Mm.” I can practically hear her narrowing her eyes through the phone. “And how much of that improvement has to do with this mystery girl your grandma seems convinced exists?”
I scrub a hand over my jaw. “Jesus. You too?”
Connie laughs softly. “That obvious, huh?”
“There’s nothing going on.”
“Sure there isn’t.”
“Connie.”
“Emmett.” She throws my own tone right back at me. “You sound lighter than you have in years. Forgive us for noticing.”
“I hear you were quite the hero.”
I groan, hanging my head over the engine in front of me. “I hate that word.”
“So, you just have a death wish then?”
“No, of course not.”
“Could have fooled me—letting a tree fall on you. ”
“It was a branch,” I say.
