Page 41 of ClickBack

She puts her arms around me. I hold her a little longer than she expects. My daughter is twenty-eight, older than I was when I began giving her the version of her father’s story I could get through without losing my voice. She stopped asking years ago. Sometimes I have mistaken that for the question going away.

“Go get some sleep,” I tell her.

“Turn your ringer on.”

“Goodbye, Rae.”

She kisses my cheek and leaves.

When I return to the kitchen, there is an answer from Jarrett.

Jarrett: Do you need representation?

Me: I negotiated my release.

Jarrett: Still got my clothes?

I look down at the shorts and laugh.

Me: Yes. You’ll survive until I return them.

Jarrett: Wasn’t asking for them back.

I take the phone upstairs with me. There is nobody here to ask why I am smiling at it, and for the moment that is one of the advantages of living alone.

By the time I have showered and put on my own clothes, Di has sent me a photograph of a sofa wedged upright in a doorway. Under it she has written, Tell me this isn’t the one I said would fit.

I call her on video.

“It’s the one,” I say when she answers.

“You could have let me say hello.”

Behind her, two teenagers stand on opposite sides of the sofa, each apparently waiting for the other to become stronger. Di turns the phone so I can see the full problem.

“Somebody took it to costume storage instead of the stage.”

“How did it get in?”

“That’s what I asked. The answer contained a lot of pointing.”

Diahann is wearing the headset she claims makes people take her seriously. Judging by the boys still examining the sofa, results vary.

“Take the legs off,” I suggest.

She looks at the sofa. “We did.”

“Take the door off.”

One of the teenagers brightens. Di points at him before he can move.

“Get Mr. Lewis. Nobody touches a hinge until an adult who understands hinges is present.”

“You’re an adult,” I remind her.

“I understand theater.”

She walks into the auditorium and sits on the end of a row. From here I can see fresh paint on a set wall and somebody’s abandoned lunch on the stage. She looks tired, but it is the tiredness of someone who has willingly gone back for more.