Now a stranger was telling me he’d been home for decades.
“Did Thomas send you because he was too frightened to face me himself?” I asked.
“He said you’d be happy to see him. That you’d both lost so much time.”
Daniel shifted uncomfortably.
“He said you’d be happy to see him. That you’d both lost so much time.”
“Did he ask whether I’d married? Whether I had children?”
“No. He mostly wanted to know if you still visited the memorial.”
I looked past him at the people embracing their loved ones near the exit.
I called Ruth from the airport.
“I need to call my sister.”
I called Ruth from the airport.
“Thomas is alive,” I said.
She went silent.
Then, very quietly, “Eleanor, are you safe?”
Ruth asked me to come home. I said I needed answers first.
I laughed. It was an awful sound.
“I don’t know.”
