My thumb kept twisting the wedding ring, pressing the metal deep into my flesh. Roger had died of a heart attack three days after the funeral, leaving me with nothing but a drawer full of unpaid medical bills and an empty house.
“Your daddy told me you were gone,” I said, more to myself than to the boy.
“Daddy came to see me once,” Euan said. “He told me we were going on a big boat, but then he did not come back.”
The room felt very cold, the draft coming through the floorboards from the cellar below.
I stood up and walked back into the kitchen, my feet heavy on the floorboards. Euan followed me, his bare feet making no sound at all on the yellow linoleum.
He stood by the kitchen table, watching me with wide eyes that seemed too large for his thin face.
I reached for the black rotary phone hanging on the wood-paneled wall beside the pantry. The plastic receiver was cold against my ear, and when I lifted it, the dial tone was loud and steady.
