The Memory Thief Read Online Free PDF Page B

real.
    I move toward the phone with the eerie inevitability of sleepwalking. My feet stick to the floor with each step. Gabe has followed me, clutching his teddy, and he looks so tiny in the light from the hall. I want to protect him from this horrible phone call. But who will protect me?
    â€œHello?” I say, steadier than I feel. Maybe if I pretend this is a normal turn of events, that my phone regularly rings at two in the morning, everything will work out fine.
    J. C. is on the other end. Even through the static of the satellite phone I can tell that his voice is laced with tears. “Maddie,” he says, and in that one word I hear the weight of the world.
    â€œNo,” I tell him. “No.”
    â€œI am so sorry,” he says to me. Avalanche, he says. Unexpected. Missing. Search and rescue. Too long without air. Fast. I don’t think he knew what hit him. Sorry sorry sorry so sorry. He says a lot more but I’m not listening. Instead I just see Aidan’s face in front of me, feel his hands on mine. Come home, I say to him. Please come home. And then I say it aloud, into the receiver that I am clutching so hard my fingers hurt.
    â€œYou bring him home to me,” I tell J. C., as if an authoritative approach is what’s called for in this situation. “Find him and bring him home.”
    â€œI wish I could,” he says. Static crackles and flares between us.
    â€œPlease,” I say, switching tactics. “Please, J. C.” I don’t know what sense this makes. After all, it’s not like J. C. has kidnapped Aidan and is holding him hostage. But somehow I feel like if I ask nicely enough, if I beg, everything will be all right.
    There is silence. Then through the static comes J. C.’s rough, ragged sobs. I have never heard him cry before, and it is that, more than anything else, that undoes me, makes me believe this is real. “He loved you, Maddie,” he says. And then the line goes dead.
    I stand there in my dark house, gripping the phone. I don’t know what I am waiting for—maybe for J. C. to call me back and tell me that this was all a mistake, that they have found Aidan and everything is fine. But the phone doesn’t ring again. It’s silent in my hand, an innocent-looking instrument of destruction.
    Aidan, where are you?
    Gabe is standing in front of me now, his teddy dangling from one hand. “Mama?” he says, looking at me with those blue eyes that are so much like Aidan’s, it makes my heart hurt. I put my hand to my chest. How will I tell him that his daddy is dead?
    But then I remember: He already knows.
    My knees buckle and I sink to the floor, dropping the receiver. Gabriel kneels next to me and very carefully, he hangs up the phone. Then he goes into my bedroom and comes back with the quilt. It’s way too big for him to carry, so he drags it along the floor behind him, a determined set to his lips. He tucks it around me, then steps back. His eyes are grave in his small, pale face. “Daddy’s not coming home, is he,” he says, and it’s not a question.
    I shake my head.
    Tears well up in his eyes, and I can see him fight them back. He is so much like his father, it frightens me. “What did Uncle J. C. say?”
    I will my voice to come out steady. My heart feels as if it is frozen and broken all at once, splintered into small icy pieces in my chest. “Your daddy had an accident on the mountain,” I say, and wince at how it sounds. Saying it out loud makes it real. “There was an avalanche.” I pull the quilt tighter around me. “Do you know what that is?”
    â€œWhen the snow all comes down at once. Daddy showed me on YouTube.”
    Of course he did. “There was an avalanche on the mountain and your daddy couldn’t get out of the way in time. He got stuck under the snow and he couldn’t get out.” Goddamn it, Aidan, I think. Damn you for making me say this