She closed her eyes to hear his response, to hear his deep voice—so deep she felt it vibrate below her belly button.

“Okay . . . maybe they’re on the way to my house.”

“Are you home?”

“No . . . no. I’m in my truck. I had some business. . . .”

“Oh. Well, if you called to find her, you might want to try her cell phone. Neither one of them ever removes the things from their bodies. I believe they put them on before they put on their underwear.”

He laughed. She smiled at the sound, squirted some honey in her tea, then twirled it around with a silver baby spoon she’d found at an antique shop with her maiden initials etched on the handle.

“Well, I guess I could say I was only calling looking for Lisbeth, but you’d see right through that, wouldn’t you?” He sighed; she exhaled with him. “I called to hear your voice.”

“No news on Oystertip?”

“Not yet.”

“I haven’t seen you since the Christmas party.” So much garbage lay stagnant below what she just said that she could almost smell its stench.

“Yes, eighteen days ago.” He paused. “Did you read them?”

“Yes. I read them.”

“Do you still have them?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

The truth that flowed now brought new truth with it. She whispered—the only way she could say it. “It breaks my heart . . . that I wasn’t there for you.”

“You didn’t know. Amy, Eliza had them. She hid them, told the lawyer she called your dorm, called your home and mailed those telegrams.”

“I . . . thought so.”

“I’m so damn sorry about all this—that it was my wife who kept us—”

“It doesn’t change what happened.”

“No, it doesn’t. But can it change anything else?”

Carol Anne’s voice echoed down the hall in unison with the sound of her boots hitting the pine floors. “Amy, what in the living tea bags are you doing—drying your own leaves?”

The kitchen door swung open and Amy turned her back on her friend and spoke into the phone. “Listen, I gotta go. But you might try their cell phones. Do you need Jack’s number?”

“You just give Carol Anne a great big hug for me. We’ll talk . . . later.”

“Okay, bye now.” She reached for her cheery voice and pushed the OFF button, hung the phone back up on the hook.

Amy turned to Carol Anne, held out her mug.

“Here ya go, just as you like it.”

“Who was important enough to leave me waiting?”

“Nick was looking for Lisbeth.”

“Yeah, right.”

“He was.”

“Nothing about telegrams, or love, or begging you to see him.”

“Nothing about any of the above.”

“Bullshit. Double bullshit.”

“He asked if I read them. I said I did. End of conversation.”

“It’s not the end of anything. I just know it.”