Myers, three weeks in, looked up when I came through the door.
"Your phone's been?—"
"I heard."
It was on the shelf where I'd left it that morning. Twelve missed calls. I picked it up and looked at the number.
Not Cassie's.
A Colorado area code, Cedar Falls prefix, but not a number I knew. I stood there with my jacket still on and looked at it long enough for one of the card players to glance over and look away again.
Then it rang in my hand.
I picked up.
"Is this Jack Henley?" A woman's voice, as professional as it was careful.
"It is."
"Mr. Henley, I'm calling from Cedar Falls Memorial. Before I continue I need to verify a few details. Can you confirm your date of birth for me?"
I confirmed it.
"And your sister's name?"
My hand tightened on the phone. "Cassie," I said. "Cassandra Marie Henley."
"Thank you Mr. Henley." A pause that had nothing good waiting on the other side of it. "I'm so sorry to tell you this?—"
I already knew. I'd known since the area code.
"Your sister passed away this afternoon. There was a car accident. She was brought in and our team did everything?—"
I stopped hearing the words after that.
Chapter Eight
Jack
"There's also the matter of your niece."
Lily was five years old. No father, and now no mother, and the woman on the phone was still talking and I was standing in a dry shack in North Dakota trying to understand what was being asked of me. The baseboard heater hummed, a thin, electric sound that didn't do much against the cold leaking through the floorboards.
The last time I'd seen Lily was a year ago. I'd driven up to Clear Creek between jobs, stayed for dinner, left after. Lily had been shy the whole visit—hid behind Cassie's leg when I came through the door, watched me from across the room while we ate, said maybe four words the entire time. Cassie had to crouch down at one point and saythis is your Uncle Jacklike I was someone who needed an introduction, which I supposed I was.
I was putting my jacket on at the door when Lily appeared at my elbow. She held out a drawing without looking at me. Crayon, a house, three figures in front of it. Sizes all wrong the way kids draw them, with the smallest figure with dark hair drawn in careful, deliberate strokes, like she'd taken her time with that part.
"That’s Mommy," Lily had whispered, her eyes fixed on my boots. "And that’s me."
I’d looked at the third figure. A tall, rectangular shape with jagged black hair and oversized hands. "Who’s this?"
"You," she said. Just the one word, like it was a fact I should have already known.
I didn't know what to say so I just took it.
I still had it. Folded in the front pocket of my backpack, soft at the creases now, the crayon gone waxy with time. I hadn't looked at it in months. I hadn't thrown it away either. It was the only thing I owned that didn't have a functional purpose.
"Mr. Henley?" The woman on the phone. "Are you still there?"