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disappeared around the corner as Bryce brought the green receiver to her ear. From the direction of her mother’s bedroom came the sound of drawers being roughly opened.
    â€œHello?” she asked nervously.
    â€œElizabeth, is that you?”
    She was struck immediately by the warmth of his voice and the fact that she’d been called Elizabeth twice in 10 minutes, when she hadn’t heard that name on anyone’s lips since grade school.
    â€œYeah…yes, it is, but I go by Bryce,” she said. Like it mattered that he knew it, anyway.
    â€œBryce, I’m afraid I have some bad news,” the voice said. “Your grandfather died early this morning.”
    Bryce bit her bottom lip, shifted the phone to the opposite ear. Did he expect her to feel bad, start crying? Because she felt nothing. “I’m sorry,” she offered finally, and then ventured, “Was he sick?”
    â€œHe had a heart attack,” her uncle told her, and she could detect his sadness, even over the phone. “He hadn’t been ill or anything, just tired…” He paused abruptly and she heard him draw a deep breath.
    â€œHey, listen, should I put Mom back on?” she asked, discomfort writhing in her belly.
    â€œNo, that’s all right,” he murmured, after what sounded like him blowing his nose. “I actually wanted to talk to you. Do you remember me at all?”
    She did, vaguely, but said, “No, not really.”
    â€œYou were so little the last time I saw you, only three or four. You and Shelly drove up for Mom’s funeral.”
    A sudden, watery memory gripped her, a vision of people huddled under umbrellas, crying, but she said again, “I don’t really remember, I’m sorry.” She gave up and sank onto her chair at the table.
    â€œYou were so little,” he said again, and sighed deeply. “Erica, that’s your aunt, played Brown Eyed Girl by Van Morrison for you on the record player that weekend. You thought that was great.” He sounded in danger of rambling, and to her amazement Bryce felt another flicker of memory: a big creaky house with big drafty rooms, a woman with gorgeous, long red hair–mermaid hair she’d wanted to comb with her fingers.
    â€œI still love that song,” she heard herself admit.
    â€œThat’s how I picture you still, with two long braids and those huge brown eyes,” he said. “I’m sure you’re a little bigger now.”
    â€œYeah,” she responded automatically, and a small spurt of anger flared in her belly, burning away the momentary connection. Suddenly he gave a shit after more than a decade and a half had passed? Where had he been when she was desperately wrapping towels around her mother’s arms?
    â€œBryce, I’m calling to see if you can talk Shelly into coming up here for the funeral,” he was saying. “It’s been so long since we’ve seen her, and you, and if you could make it that would mean so much to all of us. I would pay for plane tickets.”
    â€œAh…when?” she asked, feeling out of depth and fighting the urge to simply hang up the phone.
    â€œDad’s funeral is this Wednesday. You’d be welcome to stay longer than that, too.”
    Hell, no . But she said, “I’ll see what I can do.”
    â€œThanks, honey,” he told her like he meant to end the conversation, but he paused. Bryce imagined a hundred questions she could ask right then, but all she managed was, “Why?” Her voice sounded small, a little girl’s, though she hadn’t intended that.
    Over a thousand miles away, Wilder Sternhagen gripped the back of his neck and rocked on his heels. The heat from the fireplace in his living room, burning in a vain attempt to counter the grayness of his day, was nearly unbearable against the front of his jeans, but he didn’t move back. Instead he stared into the leaping, vivid orange