“You sound terrible.”
“Long morning.”
“Are you sick?”
“No.”
There was a pause.
Then she asked carefully, “Did something happen at work?”
I stared at the office building.
News traveled fast.
“Who told you?”
“Nobody.”
“Sarah.”
“You only use that voice when something’s wrong.”
I rubbed my forehead.
“I got fired.”
Silence.
“What?”
“This morning.”
“Why?”
I almost laughed.
“Because I stopped to help somebody on the way in.”
“What does that mean?”
“There was a woman on the roadside. She collapsed. I stayed until the ambulance came.”
“And Gavin fired you for that?”
“He said I missed the Whitcombe presentation.”
Sarah didn’t say anything for several seconds.
Then, quietly, “Chris, I’m sorry.”
That hurt worse than I expected.
My ex-wife and I had spent years learning how to speak to each other without reopening old wounds.
But there were moments when her voice still sounded like the woman I had once planned to grow old with.
