He’s cold. Resentful. I can imagine the slate blue of his eyes turned glacial. I picture him on the other end of the line, with his ash-blond hair likely buzzed for the service, his broad build in an army-issue undershirt, dog tags looping his neck—perhaps the source of the click I heard. Or was it a tap, a knock?

Suddenly it all rushes back: our years of signaling through bedroom walls, of messages passed in secret, the shared losses and laughs. Two interwoven worlds abruptly severed.

My heart twists in my chest, wringing out words long overdue.

“Arie, I have to tell you… I need you to hear how sorry, how incredibly sorry I am. The last thing I ever wanted to do was to hurt you.” I’m fighting back tears, painfully conscious of how trite I sound and that no words could possibly suffice.

He inhales, exhales. “I regret all of it too.”

It takes me a second to register: his reply isn’t reciprocal but a dig, made clear by the density of his tone. He regrets that he trusted me, that he gave so much for so little. Surely that he met me at all.

I deserve worse.

“Arie—”

“I’ve got an early meeting. So if that’s what you called for…”

The unspoken coils between us, sharp and tangled as barbed wire. I want to explain my reasons. To prove I made the wisest decision for us both, regardless of how deeply I care. To clarify how those feelings are precisely what drove my actions. But really, what would saying any of that change? All the same, I’m not ready to end the conversation, aware it could be our last, that in fairness to him, it should be.

“There’s more,” I hasten to say.

He waits, and I recall the initial prompt for my call, the excuse of it.

“You see, I–I need your help.”

“My help,” he repeats, assuredly astounded.

“Just your opinion. Since you’re assigned to intelligence now. Already a first lieutenant from what I hear.” I pause for confirmation, or any response.

“That’s right.”

“My, that’s grand.” I worry that I sounded surprised. “No doubt you’ve earned it. You’ve always worked so hard—at school and the factory, with the house and helping others. At everything you ever do.”

“Thanks…” He’s softening, only a fraction, but enough to give me hope that he doesn’t entirely despise me. “What’s the question, Fen?”

His old name for me causes a glitch in my thoughts. I push through. “I met a gentleman, here in New York. He claimed to be from the War Office in London. Said his name is Christopher…something Hutton. Clarence, or Claude—”

“Clayton,” Arie corrects, plainly taken off guard.

“Oh, yes, that’s it! You know him?”

“I know of him.”