“He’s gone, Leah. It’s just us now. He chose his business over you.”
But I had a secret. Deep in the back of my mind, I had a password. A string of numbers I’d seen once in her old, worn-out address book, written in tiny, faded script next to a name I wasn’t supposed to say. Gordon Calvinson. I’d memorized it, repeating it in my head at night like a prayer I didn’t understand.
My fingers were shaking so hard I could barely point at the phone on her desk.
“I… I have another number,” I stuttered.
“My… my daddy’s.”
Mrs. VGA’s expression was pitying. She was probably expecting a dead line. A voicemail. Another parent who wouldn’t pick up. I recited the number. She dialed. She put it on speakerphone, her pen hovering over a yellow legal pad.
One ring. Two rings. Three rings. A sharp click .
“Gordon Calvinson speaking.”
His voice was deep. Clear. It sounded… real. It wasn’t the voice of a ghost. Mrs. VGA looked at me, her eyebrows raised, prompting me. I couldn’t breathe.
“Sir, this is—” she began.
“Daddy?”
The word was so small, I wasn’t sure I’d said it. But the silence on the other end of the line was absolute. Then, a sharp, choked intake of breath.
