Directly below her name, her old phone number in Fort Wayne had been crossed out with three thick, black lines. The strokes were heavy, pressed so hard into the paper that the pen had nearly torn through to the other side.
I touched the rough paper, my finger tracing the physical grooves of the ink. Brenda had not called me in three years, not since the day Luke told me she had decided to move to Indiana and wanted no further contact with our family. But the blocky, upright letters of the crossed-out number did not belong to Brenda.
It was Luke’s handwriting, the same heavy print he used when he signed his name on our joint bank accounts.
I sat there on the floor, the hairpin still cold in my left hand, as the air in the hallway felt suddenly thin. I had spent years believing Brenda had walked away from me, leaving me alone in this house with nothing but my own failing body to occupy my mind.
