Hanna Martine - Long Shot

“I need to think,” she fired back.

They said nothing more on the short ride back to the station, Jen staring out the side window the whole time.

He didn’t park, but instead just pulled up to the curb outside the station steps and left the truck idling, the air-conditioning blasting. He gripped the steering wheel and spoke to the space between his hands. “I’m not saying it again, Jen. You know how I feel about you.”

When she inhaled, he could have sworn it was ragged. That maybe she was dragging back her tears by their heels.

“If you want to hear those words,” he said, “I need to hear you say them first. And then I’ll know for sure whether or not you think we have a future.”

She sat there for so long he lost track of the branches of his thoughts. They raced away from him, splintering, turning into so much doubt and dread.

“I need to think,” she said again, only this time in a whisper that filled the truck cabin. “And I’m trying really, really hard not to be angry. I’ll call you.”

Then she did look at him. There was definitely anger in her. But there was also sadness and attachment, and a powerful amount of determination that he recognized as her brand. He desperately hoped she’d figure out for herself what that brand meant.

She opened the door, the latch and squeak ringing in his ears. Once on the ground she looked back into the cab and said, simply, “Bye.”

Then she was gone, moving slowly up the steps into the building.

He knew right then that she would be going to London, and that she wasn’t coming back.

There were clouds over London. At least they made for a pretty sunset.

Jen stood in front of one of the three kitchen windows in Tim Bauer’s spacious English apartment. The place was severe, like him, with everything in its place. A year ago—hell, a month ago—she would have been dancing through the halls, ecstatic to be put up here. She would have been taking notes on how he lived, how he organized himself. Mulling over ways to apply his work ethic to her own.

Now, having been here a full two weeks, all she did, every night, was stare at the phone in her hand and wonder whom she should call first.

This evening was no different. Below, the random angles of the narrow London streets made a dramatic triangular corner, and the blue-painted pub situated there was doing marvelous business. People spilled out onto the sidewalk, cigarettes and pints in hand. In the distance, above the silver rooftops, rose the imposing dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

She’d been to London before, to work in Bauer’s office here, but she’d never gotten up to Scotland. Odd, that. She’d escaped one life and found another one in a tiny, faux Scotland over in the States, but now that the Borders and Edinburgh and the Highlands were a quick flight or train ride from where she stood right now, she wouldn’t get to see them. She would have loved to find Mr. MacDougall’s childhood home.

Her palm grew sweaty as she clutched the phone. This was it. She was doing this tonight. Simply because she couldn’t go another day without.

She dialed the number she still knew by heart. The phone rang and rang. She didn’t ever remember being this nervous. Ever.

“Yeah?” came the throaty voice on the other end.

Jen swallowed. “Hi, Mom.”

A long drag on a cigarette. “Aim? You sound different. And what kind of number are you calling from? It’s coming through on the caller ID with a bunch of weird zeroes.”

She couldn’t get any moisture in her mouth. “It’s not Aimee. It’s Jen.”

What followed was the longest pause in the world. “Jennifer.” No inflection. No emotion.

“Yes, it’s me.”

How are you? would have been the dumbest thing in the world to ask, considering they hadn’t spoken in ten years, so she didn’t.

Another drag on the cigarette. “Are you still in Gleann?”

“No, I left over two weeks ago. I’m in London now.”

“London.” Mom grunted in the way Jen remembered so vividly—her sitting on the stained couch, a smoke in one hand, reacting to Jen’s excellent report card.

She tried to conjure up this new image of Mom that Aimee had painted for her, but it was impossible. Was she gray-haired now? Had she gained or lost weight? Was she still sitting on that couch watching daytime TV?

“England,” Jen added.

Mom sighed. “Yeah, I figured that. That where your work is taking you these days?”

Jen hadn’t called to talk about London. “Mom, I didn’t . . . I had no idea you and Aimee and Ainsley had been talking.”

“Why would you? So why are you calling me now, after all this time? Did Aimee put you up to it?”

“No, not at all. This is me. Doing something I should have done a long time ago. I, uh, I’m calling because I just . . . well, I need to. I wanted to personally tell you some things. Is now okay?”

“Yeah.” She heard the rattle of a glass ashtray as Mom poked out her smoke. “I don’t have to leave for work for fifteen minutes.”

Work? She had a job? Jen blinked back surprise. She drew a deep breath and said, “First, I wanted to call you and tell you that I did it. That I finally got to where I always wanted to be.”

“You mean London.” Mom didn’t sound so impressed, but what else was new.

“No. I got a promotion. The big one. The one I’ve been wanting since I took the job at Bauer Events after graduation.”

Mom must have had a cold or smoker’s phlegm or something, because she blew her nose. When she finally spoke, her voice was a little muffled. “Good for you, Jennifer. You must think you’re so much better than me.”

Ten years of bitterness made the phone weigh a million pounds. Jen sank into a chair. “Um . . .” Yes , she wanted to say. Yes, I do.

“You are better than me, Jennifer,” she said, so matter-of-factly that Jen was sure she hadn’t heard right. “You always have been.”

That’s when Jen started to cry. They were silent tears, but they were fat and made big wet spots on her pants. “I have to ask. Are you drinking?”

“If you were seventeen I would’ve raked your eyes out for that.” After a pause she added, “Because the guilty are usually the most defensive.”

“So are you?”

“I’m almost two years sober.”

Jen wanted to be angry for not knowing this, until she realized she had no one to be angry at. It wasn’t Aimee’s job to tell her. Mom wouldn’t have called, considering Jen had made it clear she never wanted to talk to her again. And she couldn’t blame Ainsley, who’d only ever wanted a grandma.

Mom said, “I used some of your money for rehab. Well, for a really long time I used it to get really fucking drunk. Gambling. Some other stupid shit. It took me years to know what I had, to come to appreciate it.”

Jen found the strength to stand and moved closer to the window. The lights were coming up over London and she’d never felt so far away from everything. “What changed?”

“Aimee reaching out, despite what I did to her and to you. Ainsley changed me, too. At first it was hard to talk to her, but now I sort of, I don’t know, live for it.” Mom blew her nose again. “And then there’s the fact that your checks never stopped coming, even though I was sure you knew what I was using them for. I felt shame. For the first time in my life. Why’d you send me money, Jennifer?”

It took her a few minutes to answer, because suddenly she was consumed by the memory of Leith’s voice. “Someone once told me I feel like I need to fix everyone, that I think I have all the answers. I guess I thought I could fix you like I tried to do with Aimee. I guess I wanted you to do what you just told me you did, about the rehab. And, yeah, I think part of me wanted to rub my success in your face.”