(Rebecca's POV)
I don't fully know why, not in words I could hand someone if they asked.
Just some instinct that says the silence between Eric and me on this particular subject has a shape his mother might recognize better than I do, having lived on the other side of it for years before I ever met him.
Some door that's rusted shut with him inside it, and maybe someone who's had the key longer than I have can tell me something useful about how it used to open.
It rings once.
She picks up on the first ring, fast, immediate, like she's been sitting by the phone waiting for exactly this call to come.
She doesn't make me ask.
That's the first thing I notice, before she's even said a full sentence — no why are you calling, no careful circling, no making me spend my nerve working up to the
