DISCLAIMER: This is an original work of fiction. It is not a true Uber story. So, there is nothing else to write here.

WARNING: No sex, violence, bondage, or bad language. If the absence of those elements bother you then you should read something else.

POETRY ALERT: Be warned, there is a poem included in this work. It is not mine so don’t use it unless you get the poet’s permission like I did.

WHY: This is a follow up to my story, The Consult. You will need to read that first in order to understand this story.

THE PHONE CALL

by phair

sweeping

wash it away

wipe all the traces clean

leave no reminders

he was once

welcome here

and called my house

home

there is too much suffering

between then and now

to invite the pain

that memories bring

by Marguerite Mullaney, 2000

used with permission

"Hey Mom, phone!"

"I’m right here, Tommy. No need to holler," Allie rolled her eyes as she took the receiver from her lanky teenage son’s hand.

The boy shrugged in that annoyingly goofy way adolescent boy’s have to explain their entire existence. Allie could not help but smile at him. At six foot three, he was her biggest and best creation.

"Hello."

"Al," a voice from thousands of days of painful nightmares crackled over the wire.

"Elisabeth?" Tears had already started to flow out of an instinctual knowledge of the only possible reason for this call.

"I’m sorry to bother you. Hope it’s okay. Got the number from your folks," sniffling. "He’s gone, Al."

"Oh my God," Allie leaned against the wall for support.

"Mom?" The worried voice from across the kitchen was ignored.

"I didn’t want you to read it in the paper or, God forbid, hear it from the insurance company. Your parents were pretty upset. I tried not to upset them but I’m having a hard time myself," the voice broke.

"They’ll be okay. I’ll call them too," Allie tried to reassure the woman. "Where, I mean, how, God, Elisabeth," the tears were coming too fast to ask the right questions.

"He was here with us. He’s been home the whole time, Al. We made a good life for him. He had a big TV, a big dog, everything, anything he wanted. I found him," soft sobbing became an anguished cry.

"Oh God, Elisabeth! Are you alone?"

"No, no, Matt’s here and Mom," the voice gained some control. "We lost Dad a couple a years ago. Anyway, I’ll be fine. I have to be. It’s not like I have any choice. It’s not like any of us ever had any choice."

Allie remembered too well the lack of choices they had all faced together. Sometimes they did better than other times but it was always shoulder to shoulder determination that helped them endure.

"So, I found him this morning. He went in his sleep. The doctors think his heart just stopped. They still did the extreme thing ‘cause they have to. They shocked him back and then we had to disconnect everything. Officially, he went this afternoon but, really, that was just his body."

"He never had an easy time of it, did he?" Allie said more for herself as she wiped her tears dry.

"No, never."

"Would it be, would you, your mother mind...," she did not know how to ask.

"I know it’s a long trip," Elisabeth began almost at the same time but she knew how to ask and was able to give the question voice, "but it would mean a great deal to us for you to be here. The wake is tomorrow and the funeral is Wednesday. Do you think you could make it?"

"Will your mother be okay with that? I know, she hates me," it was stated with certainty.

"That was a very long time ago. We were all alot younger and thinner," a quiet chuckle followed, "and fighting to survive something no family should ever have to face. Besides, tomorrow is not about her. It’s only about him."

There was a pause as the woman choked back her tears. Allie’s heart jumped a beat terrified of what Elisabeth would say next.

"Thom loved you, Allie," it too was stated with certainty, "passionately. He never backed away from his feelings for you and his marriage. He was glad you made a life for yourself and remarried. He was thrilled you had a son. He cried when I told him about your cancer. How are you, anyway?"

"Remission," Allie heard a faint knocking on wood over the phone and smiled.

"Good."

"Where will it be?"

"At Kane’s, across from Stone Ridge."

The mention of the college where she met Thom brought a rush of wonderful memories. It was almost enough to block out the one terrible night followed by twenty years of loss.

"But the funeral," Elisabeth continued, "will be in our home parish, St. Joseph’s. The priest is a nice enough guy. Just a little odd."

"Find one that isn’t," Allie did not mean to say it aloud but it got a hearty laugh from the other woman.

"Too true. All the details will be in today’s Herald."

"Not the Examiner?" Allie smirked at the tabloid like selection.

"You know our crowd!" It was said with the kind of infectious laughter Allie remember best about the woman, "If the sentences are too long then they ain’t readin’ it. Oh yeah, I almost forgot. The paper listed you and there was a mistake."

"Mistake?" Allie was thinking misspelling of her name.

"I’m really sorry. They said they’d fix it tomorrow but if you get it today...," the woman rambled slightly. "Al, they listed you as his wife."

Allie felt the damn burst. Twenty years of stored up emotions flooded her. Her grief knocked her off her feet. She crashed to the floor on her knees.

"Mom?" The voice across the kitchen was alarmed. "Hey Dad!"

"Allie, are you all right?" Elisabeth panicked hearing the commotion.

"I’m, ah, I’m surprise, that’s all. Just unexpected," Allie steadied her breathing. "I’ll leave tonight. That will give me plenty of time to get back there. Do you need anything?"

"No, we’re set here. We’ll see you tomorrow then. Drive safely," the voice grew very sad, "seat belts and all that."

"Sure will," Allie blinked back tears. "See you at Kane’s."

Allie pulled herself to her feet to hang up the phone. The room was still spinning around her but she was getting her focus back. It took several minutes to remember she was not alone in the kitchen. Looking over her shoulder, two pair of eyes studied her with concern.

"Al," F. Stewart Harris stood motionless at the kitchen door, "are you all right, love? You look positively pale."

"Tommy, give your Dad and me a minute will you?" The boy wanted to argue the point but she gave him a no nonsense look, "I’ll come up and talk to you after."

The boy huffed passed his father without any further discussion. Both adults waited several more moments to be sure he was out of earshot.

"I have to go back home for a few days," Allie announced.

"Is there something wrong with your parents?" His voice carried a light English accent. "Perhaps, we should go with you."

"No, my folks are fine. My trip is really none of your business," she did not mean to be so harsh but that was how it came out.

"Really," he raised his brow. "May I ask if you will be using family resources on this affair? If you are then I believe it would most definitely be my business."

"Look, Stewart, stay out of this!" She knew she was making the situation worse and tried to calm herself, "It’s my first husband. He died this morning. I need to go back for his funeral."

F. Stewart Harris nodded slightly as he stepped further into the room. He wanted to close the distance between himself and his wife. Allie turned her back on him to retrieve her address book from the shelf behind her.

"Why?" He cleared his throat.

"Huh?" Allie continued to page through the book.

"Why do you need to be there? He was your ex-husband. You divorced him. Why do you need to go?"

F. Stewart Harris’ thoughts went to the box under their bed. It was filled with photographs of people he had never met. A wedding album that he was not in. An old flannel shirt that was two sizes too small for him. His wife spent time with the box when he was not expected home. She had never shown him the contents and bitterly refused to discuss its presence in their bedroom. F. Stewart Harris had grown to hate the box and the man it remembered; his wife’s husband.

"Shut up! Just shut up. You don’t understand and never could," Allie slammed the address book on the table. "Thom was silent for twenty years. You should be able to keep quiet for two days."

"Thom?" He almost growled.

F. Stewart Harris had not known his wife’s husband’s name. It was probably on some legal papers he had signed at some point but he never bothered to look. Allie’s previous marriage had been of no interest to him initially. It was only after they settled into their comfortable lives that he even noticed her secretiveness around the topic. Her first love shattered by a horrific car accident leaving the man a hopeless cripple. Allie provided only the barest of details when F. Stewart Harris finally asked some point after the honeymoon stage. The subject became completely off limits when their son was born.

Their son.

Alice Prentiss Mulcahy Harris’ son.

F. Stewart Harris’s son, Thomas.

"Is the boy mine?" He sat in a chair remembering her pregnancy came shortly after an unplanned trip home.

"Don’t ask questions you really don’t want the answers to," Allie pulled out the chair opposite him and sat. "Give me these two days and then it will be over," she brushed off a stray tear. "It will finally be over for me."

"Yes, I suppose it will. The question remains, will it be over for me?" He looked at his wife for the very first time in a long time and saw her grief.

"You have more options than Thom ever had, than I ever had," she reached out and took his hand in her own. "You can bite your lip for two days while I finish this and then we can get back to normal. Or, you can leave now. It is entirely up to you."

F. Stewart Harris knew it was not an idle threat. His wife never made an idle threat.

"Have a safe trip, dear," he forced a smile. "I guess Tommy and I can do Take Out for a couple of days."

"The menus are in the cookie jar," she smiled and patted his hand. "There is one other thing. The obituary listed me as Thom’s wife."

"Of course they did," F. Stewart Harris shook his head slightly. "After all this time, you’re still his wife, aren’t you?"

Allie did not answer. The man at the kitchen table already knew her answer. There was no need to say it out loud.

The End

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