Chapter 56 - The Man Who Wanted to Forget
Thomas Keene called while I was cutting an apple for Isabel.
“Tell them I don’t remember.”
I put down the knife.
“Thomas?”
“The people asking about the warehouse. Tell them my memory isn’t what it used to be.”
Thomas was the retired dispatcher whose old calendar had helped establish where Jonah Reed’s supposedly stolen equipment had gone.
I had spoken with him only twice.
He had sounded patient both times.
Now I could hear him breathing.
“Has someone contacted you?”
A pause.
“People contact me all the time.”
“Who called?”
“I didn’t say called.”
Across the kitchen, Isabel arranged apple slices around the edge of her plate.
I turned away from her.
“Did somebody visit?”
Thomas said nothing.
Then, “I’m seventy-four, Mr. Caldwell. My wife has appointments. We have enough to worry about.”
“You don’t have to explain anything to me.”
“Good.”
“But I can give you Rebecca’s number. Or you can speak with the person who contacted you from the investigation.”
“I don’t want another number.”
His voice cracked.
“I want to go back to being someone nobody remembers.”
The call ended.
For several seconds, I held the phone against my ear.
Then Isabel tugged my sleeve.
“You stopped.”
I looked down.
She pointed at the apple.
“There’s still half.”
I finished slicing it.
After she went into the living room, I called Rebecca.
I repeated Thomas’s words as accurately as I could.
Not what I thought he meant.
What he had actually said.
She asked me to write down the conversation while it was fresh.
“And don’t contact anyone you suspect may have approached him.”
I looked toward the window.
An ordinary delivery van stopped across the street.
For one brief moment, I began noticing things the way I used to.
Number plate.
Driver.
Doors.
Distances.
“I understand.”
“Ethan.”
“I heard you.”
Afterward, I called Marco.
He answered from his sister’s house.
I almost asked him to find out who had visited Thomas.
The words were ready.
Familiar.
Instead, I told him what had happened.
“Rebecca’s handling the next steps.”
“Good.”
“I wanted you to know.”
“I’m glad you called.”
He did not offer to make inquiries.
Once, we would have understood each other without needing to ask.
Now we were learning to let an unfinished sentence remain unfinished.
That evening, Lena found my written account beside the fruit bowl.
She read it.
Then she looked at me.
“How frightened are you?”
“Enough that I wanted to do something quickly.”
She sat beside me.
“What did you do?”
“Wrote it down.”
May you like
For a moment, she held my gaze.
Then she moved the bowl so there would be room for her hand beside mine.
