“Mina?” There’s no softness to his voice. It digs under my skin. “This is a terrible line. Speak up.”
“I’m in a pay phone.”
“Why?”
His voice sounds dry and tinny and distant.
“Long story. How are you, Oscar?”
I want him to tell me I’m wrong. That he misses me, that Lucy is a figment of my imagination, I want him to make me feel weightless.
“I’m at work, Mina. Been busy. You know how it is.”
I stare at the heat haze rising off the green. The water in the pond is a silver mirror.
“I just want to— I just wanted to talk to you. I miss you. So much has happened, so much weird stuff. I’ve been feeling”—strange, like I’m falling into a void—“lonely.”
His response is curt. “When are you coming home?”
“Do you love me, Oscar?”
A beat. She’s there, of course. Lucy. I tighten my grip on the phone.
“Oscar?”
“Of course I do, Mina. Let’s talk when you get back.”
“Say it. Please.”
He sighs and I think—this is how it ends. I hear the rustle of movement at the end of the line. Perhaps he is switching the phone to his other ear, perhaps he is moving out of her embrace. I change the subject, voice croaky with the stifling heat.
“Can you translate something for me, Oscar? It’s Latin.”
“I’ll try.”
“Daemonia eicere.I can spell it for you—”
“No need. It means ‘cast out devils.’ You mixed up in something you shouldn’t be?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t.”
“Because you can’t say I didn’t warn you. I did try.” Hesighs again, and the edge of his voice blurs, just enough for me to know he is disappointed. “I knew this would happen.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just come home, Mina. Come home and rest. You’ve got a wedding to arrange.”
I trace a finger over a crack in the plastic window, warm to the touch. I wonder what Lucy’s thinking, hearing this. Has she left the room? Is he turning his back on her, still plowing ahead with a wedding I don’t think either of us wants anymore? His tone gives nothing away.
“Oscar, do we have a song?”
“A what?”
“A song. One that makes you think of me when you hear it?”
He pauses. His throat clicks. “I don’t know, Mina. Do we?”
“I’ve met an old couple here who’ve been married forty-three years. They had a song. ‘Blue Moon’ sung by Billie Holiday. In their wedding photo they’re dancing to it. They look so happy, Oscar. Mary, her name was. She died yesterday and it was me who found the body. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this, I just—I wondered if we had a song.”