All We Could Still Have: A Novel by Diane Barnes

Author:Diane Barnes [Barnes, Diane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2023-11-06T16:00:00+00:00

After leaving Elizabeth’s office, I called Hank. The phone rang ten times before voice mail picked up. I hung up without leaving a message. I planned to tell Elizabeth that I couldn’t get in touch with him and we should run the story as I had written it, but he called me back that evening while I walked Oliver. “I saw you called.”

“I have more questions. For the article.”

“Bring them on. You know my favorite subject is me.” He laughed.

I stood under a streetlight in front of the Abramses’ house, holding the dog’s leash. Oliver tugged at a branch that was partially frozen in the remnants of a snowbank, trying to free it.

“Elizabeth would like the story to be more about you.” I said my boss’s name louder than any other word. He needed to know that it was her, not me, who wanted our readers to know more about him. “For example, what was it like when you returned to Mount Stapleton?”

Hank stayed quiet for so long that I thought the call had dropped, but then I heard him take a deep breath. “Really difficult.”

“Why? Weren’t you treated like a hero? Wasn’t the town glad you were back?”

The curtains in the Abramses’ living room shifted, and Mr. Abrams’s face appeared in the window.

“I don’t want to talk about that.” Hank’s tone had shifted to that of a hostile witness, surprising me. I remembered customers in DeMarco’s Diner stopping to shake his hand, asking for his autograph and taking their picture with him. I’d thought he would want to boast about his celebrity status, which as far as I knew he still had today.

“Why does that matter?” he asked.

It doesn’t, I thought as I repeated Elizabeth’s words. “It humanizes the story.”

Oliver gave up gnawing on the stick and climbed up on the snowbank, squatting when he reached the top. Mr. Abrams banged on the window, pointed at my puppy, and raised a fist. I pulled a plastic bag from my coat to let him know I would clean up after Oliver, but Mr. Abrams kept banging. I tugged on Oliver’s leash and led him across the street to our yard.

“I was in a bad way, Nikki,” Hank said. “I’d sacrificed a lot for hockey, and I couldn’t play anymore.”

“What did you sacrifice?”

The sound of Hank’s heavy breathing filled the phone line. I pictured him younger, sprinting across the ice. “It’s not a story for the magazine, but if you want to hear it, I’ll tell you sometime.”

The melancholy from his voice practically dripped out of my phone. I definitely didn’t want to hear what he had to say.

He cleared his throat. “Send me a draft of the article.” He barked the words out like a command. “I’ll review it and let you know what I think.”

“I’ll email it tomorrow morning.”

“Arianna and I are going to be traveling for the next few months, spending time in Rome, Paris, and London. Maybe Madrid too. We won’t be back to Stapleton until the summer.

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