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“You okay?”

“Uh-huh. Tomorrow we’re gonna go to Disney World and Coleman says we could all go fishin’ if we want.”

I was relieved that she was so far away.

“You aren’t calling your friends, are you?”

“No.”

“Nobody?”

“This one guy I met at the roller rink in Dumbo called my real phone. I told him I was down with relatives in D.C. for two weeks. Nobody knows I know him, though.”

“I love you, girl.”

“Mama’s here. She wanna talk to you.”

There was a rustling sound and then: “Joe?”

“Hey, Monica.”

“Are you all right?”

Rage sparked at a place very near my dinosaur brain. There was a time when my wife could have shielded me from the terrors of Rikers. She could have put up the money and I might have escaped the brunt of my late-night terrors.

“Joe?” she asked again.

“I’m fine.”

“Can you tell me what’s going on? Did my call really bring all this down?”

“Not completely. I mean, I could’a become a plumber,” I said. I just didn’t want her angry with me. There was no need to torture her, no matter how deep my pain.

“Why are you calling?” she asked.

“Because my little girl’s voice is like penicillin for my wounds.” I felt a little eddy of giddiness twist through my mind. The alcohol was increasing its hold.

“We’re fine,” Monica said. “Coleman is protecting us.”

I sent two texts after saying good night to Aja. Twelve minutes later my temporary phone rang.

“Hey, Effy.”

“Joe?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What’s this phone?”

“I’m in a little trouble.”

“You need me?”

There was something in the tenor of her question that sent a chill through me. It was something beyond love all the way back to when humanity was a group animal connected by experience deeper than any memory.

“I been thinkin’ about you,” the cognac in me said.

“What?”