Chapter Six
The Number in the Drawer
Jennifer opened the kitchen drawer three times before breakfast.
The first time, she took out a rubber band.
The second time, she moved a packet of batteries.
The third time, Lucas was standing beside the coffee machine.
“What are you looking for?”
“Nothing.”
He glanced at the rubber band around her wrist.
She closed the drawer.
“Do phone numbers expire?”
Lucas poured his coffee carefully.
“If someone stops paying for them, I guess.”
“How long does that take?”
“I don’t know.”
Jennifer leaned against the counter.
“Could somebody else have it?”
“Eventually.”
She nodded.
He put the pot back.
“We could—”
Jennifer looked at him.
Lucas stopped.
She almost smiled.
“You caught yourself.”
“Barely.”
She took her coffee to the table.
The paper stayed beneath the sewing kit.
For the next two days, Emily’s number entered conversations without being mentioned.
At breakfast, Jennifer asked whether a text would show her full name.
That afternoon, she wanted to know whether someone could block a number before receiving a call from it.
The next morning, she asked whether Lucas still spoke to anyone from high school.
“A few people.”
“Daniel?”
“Sometimes.”
“He was loud.”
“He still is.”
“Did he ever learn to whisper?”
“No. He just leans closer.”
Jennifer smiled.
Then she said, “Does he know I’m here?”
Lucas put down his fork.
“No.”
“Have you told anyone?”
“No.”
She looked at him for a moment.
“Okay.”
He wanted to ask whether that made her feel safer or more alone.
He did not know how to ask without making her choose an answer.
On Wednesday, Jennifer took the paper out of the drawer.
Lucas was in his office.
He heard her moving around the kitchen but stayed where he was. A position he had held since Monday was moving against him, and for once he was paying attention.
Jennifer appeared in the doorway.
“Are you busy?”
“A little.”
She began to turn.
“I can stop.”
“You don’t have to.”
He looked at the paper in her hand.
“Give me two minutes.”
She nodded and went back downstairs.
Lucas closed the position.
Later, he would remember doing it without checking what he had lost.
When he entered the kitchen, Jennifer’s phone lay beside the paper.
She was staring at both.
“I don’t know what to say.”
He sat across from her.
“You could start with hello.”
She gave him a look.
“Too advanced?”
“A little.”
Lucas rested his hands on the table.
Jennifer picked up the phone, unlocked it and set it down again.
“What if she thinks it’s somebody pretending?”
“Would someone do that?”
“I don’t know what people do.”
He waited.
She typed a few words.
Deleted them.
Typed again.
“What did you write?”
“Nothing yet.”
“Okay.”
Jennifer glanced up.
“You’re looking.”
Lucas turned toward the window.
“I’ll supervise the trees.”
For almost a minute, the room was quiet.
Then she said, “That one needs help.”
“Which one?”
“The crooked one.”
“It’s doing its best.”
“So am I.”
He turned back.
Jennifer was looking at the screen.
Her face had changed.
“I know,” he said.
The message was six words.
Emily. It’s Jen. I’m safe.
Jennifer read it aloud once, without looking at Lucas.
“Is that strange?”
“No.”
“Should I explain?”
“You can if you want.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked at him.
“You’re getting very comfortable saying that.”
“Practice.”
Her thumb rested above the screen.
“What if it’s someone else?”
“Then we find out.”
Jennifer took a breath.
She sent it.
For several seconds, nothing happened.
Lucas looked toward the coffee machine.
“Want—”
The phone vibrated.
Jennifer flinched so sharply that it struck the table.
Neither of them moved.
Then she picked it up.
Lucas watched her eyes move across the screen.
“What did she say?”
Jennifer swallowed.
“‘Can I call you?’”
The phone vibrated again.
A second message.
Jennifer pressed her lips together.
“What?”
“‘Please.’”
Lucas sat back.
Jennifer placed the phone facedown.
“I can’t.”
“Okay.”
“She’s going to call.”
“You haven’t said yes.”
“She might anyway.”
“We can wait.”
Jennifer pushed back her chair.
She walked to the sink.
Turned on the tap.
Turned it off.
Lucas remained at the table.
Behind him, the refrigerator began to hum.
After a while, she said, “Could you do it?”
“The call?”
“Just tell her.”
“Tell her what?”
“That I’m here.”
He considered it.
“I could. But she’s asking for you.”
“I know that.”
“Sorry.”
Jennifer gripped the edge of the counter.
Lucas could see the muscles in her forearms tighten.
Then she turned.
“Would you stay?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t talk.”
“Okay.”
“Even if it’s awkward.”
“That’s most conversations for me.”
A small breath escaped her.
Almost a laugh.
She came back to the table.
Her reply took longer to write than the first message.
You can call. I might not talk much.
She sent it.
The phone rang before she could put it down.
“Hello?”
Jennifer’s voice was so quiet Lucas barely heard it.
For a moment, there was nothing.
Then a woman’s voice, thin through the phone.
“Jen?”
Jennifer closed her eyes.
“Yeah.”
“Oh my God.”
Jennifer looked down.
The woman said her name again.
Then there was a sound Lucas recognized without needing to hear it clearly.
Crying.
Jennifer pulled the phone a little away from her ear.
Lucas looked at the table.
He had promised not to talk.
He had not considered how difficult it would be to remain present without watching.
“Emily.”
The crying continued.
“I’m here.”
A pause.
“No. I’m okay.”
Another pause.
Jennifer glanced toward Lucas.
“With a friend.”
She listened.
“His name’s Lucas.”
The faint voice asked something.
“From school. My year.”
Jennifer’s mouth moved into a brief, surprised smile.
“Yes. That Lucas.”
Lucas looked up despite himself.
She looked away.
For several seconds, he felt an absurd flicker of curiosity.
What did that Lucas mean?
Then Jennifer’s smile disappeared.
“I said I’m safe.”
Her sister’s voice had become louder.
Lucas could not make out every word. He heard enough.
Where.
How long.
Why.
Jennifer pulled the sleeve of her sweater over her free hand.
“I didn’t know what to say.”
Emily spoke for a long time.
Jennifer did not interrupt.
At last, she said, “I know.”
She listened.
“I know.”
Then, more sharply:
“I said I know.”
Lucas shifted in his chair.
Jennifer looked at him immediately.
He went still.
Emily had been angry before.
Jennifer remembered arguments about clothes borrowed without asking, a broken hair straightener, the time Emily had told their mother where Jennifer had really spent a Friday night.
She remembered her sister at fourteen, furious because Jennifer had laughed when she announced she intended to move to another country.
This anger sounded different.
It kept breaking.
“I thought I’d get a call,” Emily said. “Every time a number came up that I didn’t know.”
Jennifer pressed her palm against the table.
“I’m sorry.”
“Where were you?”
“In different places.”
“What does that mean?”
Jennifer looked toward the window.
“It means different places.”
“Were you staying with someone?”
“Sometimes.”
“And the other times?”
Jennifer did not answer.
Emily drew a breath.
“Jen.”
“Please.”
“I’m trying to understand.”
“I know.”
“No, you keep saying that, but I don’t think you do.”
Jennifer’s fingers tightened around the phone.
Lucas watched the movement.
He could hear Emily now, though he wished he couldn’t.
“I went to the showroom,” she said. “Twice. The second time, nobody there remembered you.”
Jennifer stared ahead.
“You went there?”
“Of course I went there.”
“Why?”
There was silence.
Then Emily said, “What do you mean, why?”
Jennifer lowered her head.
Lucas recognized the question.
He had answered it on a sidewalk.
Emily sounded as though it had hurt her.
“I called people,” she continued. “I sent messages to people I barely knew. I asked Mom for names. I found that woman you lived with.”
“Rachel?”
“Yes. Rachel.”
“What did she say?”
“She hadn’t heard from you.”
Jennifer touched her forehead.
“She didn’t tell me.”
“How was she supposed to tell you?”
Jennifer had no answer.
Lucas got up slowly.
Jennifer caught his wrist before he had taken a full step.
He looked down.
She shook her head.
He sat again.
Her hand remained against his sleeve for a moment.
Then she withdrew it.
“I thought you didn’t want—”
Jennifer stopped.
On the phone, Emily asked, “Didn’t want what?”
Jennifer rubbed beneath one eye.
“To hear from me.”
A long silence followed.
When Emily spoke again, she sounded farther away.
“I thought you didn’t want us to find you.”
Jennifer stared at the wood grain beneath her hand.
“I was angry.”
“I know.”
“And then it had been too long.”
“You could still have called.”
“I know.”
“On my birthday, I thought maybe—”
Emily stopped.
Jennifer’s face tightened.
Lucas looked toward the window, giving her the only privacy he could offer without leaving.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
This time, the words came out differently.
No defense attached.
No explanation waiting behind them.
Emily began crying again.
Jennifer listened.
After a while, her sister asked for the address.
Jennifer looked at Lucas.
He could not tell what she was asking him.
Permission?
Advice?
He stayed quiet.
“I’m not ready for that,” Jennifer said.
Emily answered immediately.
“No. I know. I just—”
Jennifer listened.
“I don’t want everybody coming.”
Another pause.
“I know you’re not everybody.”
Her free hand had begun to shake.
Lucas watched her press it flat against her thigh.
“Not today.”
Emily said something about their mother.
Jennifer shook her head, though her sister could not see it.
“Not yet.”
The voice on the phone grew urgent.
Jennifer shut her eyes.
“I know she’s worried.”
She listened.
“I know.”
Then she pulled the phone away.
For one confused second, Lucas thought the call had dropped.
Jennifer looked at the screen and ended it.
The silence in the kitchen felt abrupt and physical.
She set the phone down.
“I couldn’t.”
Lucas nodded.
Her breathing was fast.
“I couldn’t keep doing it.”
“Okay.”
“She was going to ask about doctors.”
“Maybe.”
“And Mom.”
He waited.
“And where I’ve been, and why I didn’t call, and—”
Jennifer stood.
Her chair scraped against the floor.
“I know why she’s asking.”
“I know you do.”
“I’m not saying she shouldn’t.”
Lucas stayed seated.
Jennifer looked at the phone.
It vibrated.
She stepped back.
Lucas did not touch it.
After a few seconds, the screen went dark.
Jennifer went upstairs.
Her door closed.
Lucas remained at the table.
He looked at the paper with Emily’s number.
The call had lasted seventeen minutes.
He knew because the number remained on Jennifer’s screen before it went dark.
Seventeen minutes after more than a year.
It seemed both impossibly short and more than she had been able to bear.
He wanted to send Emily a message.
Just a few words.
She’s overwhelmed. She’s safe. Give her a little time.
He could explain the house.
The room.
The appointments.
He could tell her that Jennifer was eating, though not always enough, and that some mornings she laughed.
He could make the silence less frightening for the person on the other end.
The phone lay within reach.
Lucas folded his hands.
Jennifer had asked him to stay.
She had not asked him to explain her.
He got up and washed the breakfast dishes.
By late afternoon, he had checked the stairs more often than his screens.
Jennifer had not come down.
He considered bringing food.
Then considered whether knocking would feel like another question she had to answer.
Finally, he made a sandwich and left it on a plate in the refrigerator.
He sent a message.
Food downstairs when you want it.
He watched the message deliver.
That small confirmation should not have felt like something he had earned.
He set down the phone.
Outside, a delivery van stopped across the street.
Lucas watched a man carry a box toward a neighbor’s house.
For weeks, Jennifer’s world had been frighteningly narrow.
The house.
The car.
Waiting rooms.
Him.
He had wanted it to become larger.
Now her sister knew she was alive, and something in him had tightened.
He imagined Emily arriving.
Knowing what Jennifer liked without asking.
Using a childhood nickname.
Taking her home.
Home.
The word troubled him.
He stood at the office window longer than necessary.
Then he went back to work.
Jennifer came downstairs at six.
Her hair was flattened on one side. She wore the same sweater, with the sleeves pulled over her hands.
“Did she call again?”
“I don’t know.”
Jennifer looked at the phone on the table.
“You didn’t check?”
“No.”
She picked it up.
Three messages.
She read them without speaking.
Then she sat.
Lucas waited beside the counter.
“Is it bad?”
Jennifer shook her head.
The first message said:
I’m sorry. That was too much at once.
The second had arrived eleven minutes later.
Please don’t disappear again.
The third was shorter.
You don’t have to call tonight.
Jennifer read that one twice.
Lucas sat across from her.
“She thinks I’m going to do it again.”
“She’s scared.”
Jennifer looked up.
“I know.”
He nodded.
This time, the words did not sound like an attempt to stop the conversation.
She understood.
That was part of what made it difficult.
After a while, Jennifer asked, “What should I say?”
Lucas looked at the phone.
“What do you want her to know?”
“That I want to talk.”
He waited.
“Just not now.”
“You could say that.”
Jennifer unlocked the screen.
Her thumbs moved slowly.
I want to talk again. Just not tonight.
She read it once, then added:
I’m sorry I hung up.
She sent it before asking whether it was right.
Lucas leaned back.
The reply came a minute later.
Okay. I’m here.
Jennifer held the phone.
She did not put it facedown.
They ate the sandwiches because neither felt like making dinner.
Jennifer took hers apart to remove a slice of tomato.
“You could have told me you didn’t want it.”
“I didn’t know I didn’t want it until I saw it.”
“Reasonable.”
She set the tomato on his plate.
Lucas ate it.
For a while, they talked about nothing important.
The weather.
A cabinet door that would not stay closed.
Whether the bread was getting stale.
Then Jennifer said, “You were quiet after.”
“After the call?”
She nodded.
“You went upstairs.”
“I mean before. Near the end.”
Lucas considered pretending he did not know what she meant.
He had become aware, recently, of how often kindness gave him a convenient place to hide.
“I was thinking about Emily.”
Jennifer waited.
“What about her?”
“That she knows you.”
“So do you.”
“Differently.”
Jennifer studied him.
“She knows what I was like at eight,” she said. “You know how I take my coffee now.”
“Too much sugar.”
“You’re changing the subject.”
He smiled faintly.
Then stopped.
“I thought she might come get you.”
Jennifer set down her sandwich.
“Get me?”
He heard it.
“Wrong words.”
“Yes.”
“I thought you might go stay with her.”
“Would that bother you?”
Lucas looked at his plate.
The easy answer was no.
The true answer was more embarrassing.
“I’d miss you.”
Jennifer’s expression changed.
He continued before she could respond.
“And I think I got used to being the person you came to.”
She watched him.
“That’s something I need to think about,” he said.
Jennifer looked down.
“I can’t stay here because you’d be lonely.”
“I know.”
She nodded, but not quite as though she believed him.
Lucas rested his hands on the table.
“If you want to see her, I’ll help you get there.”
“You say that like I’ve decided.”
“You haven’t.”
“No.”
They sat quietly.
Then Jennifer picked up her sandwich.
“For the record,” she said, “I’d miss you too.”
Lucas looked at her.
She pointed at his plate.
“Are you going to eat that pickle?”
He slid it across.
Emily sent the photograph at nine thirteen.
Lucas knew the time because Jennifer was sitting beside him on the couch when her phone lit up.
She had brought it downstairs without being reminded.
The television was on, though neither of them had followed the program closely.
Jennifer opened the message.
Then became still.
Lucas turned down the volume.
“What?”
She did not answer.
He waited.
Emily had written:
Found this when I was looking through the old laptop. Thought you might want it.
Jennifer enlarged the photograph.
A younger woman sat on the floor beside a table.
Her hair was tied loosely above her head. There was a pencil tucked behind one ear and a dark mark on her wrist that might have been paint or ink.
She was laughing.
Not toward the camera.
At someone just outside it.
On the table stood a model building.
White walls.
A low roof.
Tall windows along one side.
Trees made from wire and something green.
Lucas looked from the picture to Jennifer.
“What were you designing?”
She touched the screen.
“A library.”
He leaned closer, leaving space between them.
“For a class?”
“Community design studio.”
She enlarged the building.
The photograph became grainy.
“That roof took me three days.”
“Why?”
“It kept sagging.”
“What did you make it out of?”
“Something I shouldn’t have.”
Lucas smiled.
Jennifer did too.
Then she moved the picture until the model filled the screen.
“The site was between a bus stop and an elementary school,” she said. “Everybody else put the entrance here.”
She pointed.
“Mine was around the corner.”
“Why?”
“So the children didn’t have to cross the parking entrance.”
Lucas looked.
He could see it now.
A narrow path.
A small courtyard.
A door set back beneath the roof.
Jennifer moved her finger to the other side.
“This was the reading room. Morning light. There were shelves here, but low ones, so you could see through.”
“What’s that?”
“An outdoor space.”
“For reading?”
“For whatever. Sitting. Waiting. Being somewhere without having to buy anything.”
Lucas looked at her.
She was still studying the model.
“There were outlets along that wall,” she said. “I remember arguing about them.”
“With who?”
“My professor.”
“What was wrong with outlets?”
“Nothing. He thought I’d put too many in.”
“Had you?”
“No.”
She said it with such immediate certainty that Lucas laughed.
Jennifer turned toward him.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“I hadn’t.”
“I believe you.”
She looked back at the picture.
For several minutes, she explained the building.
How the roof directed rainwater.
Where the bathrooms were.
Why a person entering from the street should be able to find the desk without walking through a silent room full of people.
Lucas asked questions.
Jennifer answered them.
Once, she corrected him before he had finished.
He found he liked that too.
Eventually, she looked again at the laughing woman beside the table.
“I forgot Emily took this.”
“She visited?”
“For the review.”
“Your little sister came to your college review?”
“She skipped school.”
Lucas smiled.
“Your mother know?”
“Absolutely not.”
Jennifer’s smile widened.
“She sat in the back trying to look like a student. Asked one of my professors where the vending machines were.”
“Convincing.”
“She was fifteen.”
The smile lingered.
Then Jennifer lowered the phone.
For a moment, Lucas thought she might cry.
Instead, she opened the message box.
I remember that day.
She paused.
Then added:
You bought three bags of chips and said college was disappointing.
Emily replied almost immediately.
The vending machine was the only thing that accepted my qualifications.
Jennifer laughed.
The sound surprised both of them.
She read the message again.
Then she saved the photograph.
Later, Lucas found her in the kitchen.
The phone stood against the sugar bowl, with the library model still on the screen.
Jennifer had taken a pencil from the drawer.
Beside it lay the pad from which she had torn Emily’s number.
Lucas stopped at the doorway.
She looked up.
“Do you have a ruler?”
“Probably.”
“In this house, that could mean anything.”
He checked the drawer beside the oven.
Then the cupboard above the microwave.
Finally, he remembered the desk upstairs.
When he returned, Jennifer had drawn a rectangle.
Nothing else.
He placed the ruler beside her.
“Thanks.”
Lucas looked at the paper.
He almost asked what she planned to do with it.
Instead, he filled the kettle.
Jennifer studied the photograph, measured a short distance and drew another line.
“The entrance was farther over,” she said.
Lucas looked.
“Here?”
“No. Here.”
She erased the first mark.
Then she tried again.