For the next week, I found myself thinking about him more than I wanted to admit. Not romantically. Not nostalgically. Just curiously. Like a puzzle I thought I’d solved years ago had suddenly come apart.
Then Maddy betrayed me.
At least that’s how I described it.
She called one evening and casually announced, “I gave Dad your number.”
I nearly dropped my phone. “You what?”
“Oh, relax.”
“Maddy.”
“He wasn’t going to stalk you.”
“That’s not helping.”
She laughed, then hung up before I could properly object.
Two days later, my phone rang. It was an unknown number. I almost ignored it.
Almost.
Instead, I answered. “Hello?”
Silence. Not dead air silence, breathing silence.
Then, “Audrey?”
For a second, I couldn’t speak, because some voices change. And some don’t. Jack’s had aged. It had deepened slightly, but it was still Jack.
Twenty years vanished in a single word.
I closed my eyes. “Hi, Jack.”
Another silence. Neither of us seemed to know where to start. Finally, he laughed quietly. “I had an entire speech prepared.”
“How’d that work out?”
“Terribly.”
Despite myself, I smiled.
The conversation was awkward at first. Two strangers trying to navigate memories that belonged to different people. We talked about Maddy. Miles. Work. Retirement. Safe subjects.
Then eventually, the photograph appeared. Just like I knew it would.
“You kept them.” The words escaped before I could stop them.
Jack was quiet for several seconds. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
I expected him to answer immediately. He didn’t. When he finally spoke, his voice sounded different. Softer. “I don’t know.”
I didn’t believe him.
He laughed. “Okay. That’s not true.”
“No.”
“It’s because I could never bring myself to throw them away.” He paused. “Every time I tried, it felt like I was throwing away a question I never got answered.”
My chest tightened unexpectedly.
