“Hank –” I started.
He cut in. “They told me you had a bad night. Just that.
They’re worried.”
I looked out the side window. “I didn’t have a bad night. I just had…” I struggled to find the word. Final y, I found it. “An episode. I’m fine.”
He didn’t say anything.
I turned to him. “I’m fine,” I repeated, maybe trying to convince myself.
He stopped at a stop sign, turned to me, lifted his hand and ran the backs of his fingers down my cheek.
Then, without a word, he looked toward the road again and we were off.
I was so stunned by his loving touch, feeling the sensation of something knit together that had been torn apart in me, that I didn’t say another word the rest of the way to Hank’s.
I was staring out the side window again, lost in thought, when I felt the air in the cab of the 4Runner go funny.
I looked to Hank and I knew something was wrong.
“What?” I asked.
He drove right by his house and I watched it slide by. The outside light was on as wel as the lights in the living room and kitchen.
“What?” I repeated.
“I didn’t leave any lights on,” he said. “Do you have Lee’s number programmed in your phone?” He leaned forward to pul his own out of his back pocket.
I felt fear glide down my spine.
“I don’t know,” I answered.
“Sweetheart, get out your phone. I’l tel you the number.” With trembling hands, I pul ed out my phone. As I started to flip it open, it rang. I jumped, the phone went flying in the air and I fumbled it, then caught it.
The display said, “Uncle Tex cal ing.”
“What the…” I started to say.
Uncle Tex, to my knowledge, never used the cel phone I bought him and his cel was the only number of his I had programmed in my phone.
I flipped it open. “Hel o?”
“Why’d you drive by? Saw you doin’ it, f**kin hel ,” Uncle Tex said.
I blinked in the dark cab. “Where are you?”
“Standin’ in Hank’s living room window. Jesus. What’re you, goin’ out for ice cream?”
I turned to Hank, he was driving and scrol ing through his phone book at the same time.
“Uncle Tex is in your living room. He saw us drive by,” I told Hank.
Hank glanced at me, flipped his phone shut, then, at the next crossroads, he swung a uey.
“We’re coming back,” I told Uncle Tex.
“See you in a minute,” then Uncle Tex disconnected.