Hotline Heaven by Frances Park

Author:Frances Park
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504024808
Publisher: The Permanent Press (ORD)

Fifteen

The chilly gray of mid-November makes its way up Muddy Creek Road, around Crab Apple Bend, down to Acorn Way, followed by wind and rain. Most of the leaves have fallen. Jane’s down to the last tier of the wedding cake, polishing off the last frozen crumbs. No letter.

Over a pot of melting butter, I say, “A penny for your thoughts.”

“I’ve been thinking about it, Jo. After the New Year, after the photojournalist from Hearthstone does her thing and I’ve had my five minutes of fame, I’m moving on. Read my palm: There’s nothing for me here.”

Jane’s home may be here, but for months she’s been in the woods with Paul. Kicking up ancient leaves in Michigan. That world has come to an end, she’s been watching the leaves in Canterbury fall like lost hopes, one by one.

I turn off the stove, go cold with desertion. “Don’t leave, Jane.”

“What, and rot like Mrs. Peabody? I’ve got to find better things to do.” She washes down a palmful of cake crumbs with Seventh Spa.

“I know there’s something out there for me, Jo. A life. A companion. Dinners for two and slow dancing in the dark. Weekends in bed and breakfast inns by the shore.” I can hear it, her heart actually cracking in half. “I thought it would be with Paul. I could feel it in my bones, the urgency of his arms around me like he was off to war. But I was wrong.”

And me, I’m the earth a moment before a quake. On the surface, no one can tell. I’m just Jo, making my cakes. No one can hear me praying, Monk will live, Monk will live.

This Thanksgiving I’m inviting guests over. Jane along with Brownie, who will be home from school for winter vacation. Clyde, Mac, and two Lonely Old Widowers by the names of Barry and Bill. Monk’s against the whole thing. “Why are you inviting all these turkeys, Jo? You’re breaking tradition.”

Our tradition has always been just the two of us. A small crusty bird and a bowl of sticky yams. Gravy Monk stirred and simmered and peppered over the stove. We never did the big family thing, there was no family to invite. Anyone who mattered was long gone.

There were two aunts who stuck to my mother’s story. Who knows where I came up with the story of the gun? They offered me gingersnaps and cups of cola, trying to make me forget. Once they took turns putting warm towels to my head. It was something out of the movies. But then there was a falling out—an argument on the porch—and I didn’t see them anymore. There was no more talk of aunts nor mention of a gun. All the pictures were gone, vanished into thin air. The house grew so quiet it may as well have disappeared off the block. And then it was just my mother, Frannie, and me at every meal.

Monk met Frannie once. It was just hours after we met, I was getting my things.

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