The phone won’t stop ringing. It buzzes in my pocket again and again, first one call, then another. I made Norma promise to call the direct line at the store if there was an emergency with Rosie, but that line hasn’t had a single call other than one errant delivery guy.

I should silence the damn thing.

I don’t.

Finally I have to shut off the coffee grinder and turn away from the front of the line.

I’ve been in this all day, but only half present. The fight with Ellie keeps crashing over my mind like thunder, lightning splitting the sky. Was I the asshole or was she the asshole? Were we both the asshole? It was probably both of us, but every fifteen minutes I change my mind. Every fifteen minutes another wave of guilt for hurting her at all, ever, covers me like high tide.

“Excuse me,” I say over my shoulder and slip my phone from my pocket.

It’s an unknown number.

Jesus. Endless prank calls? I don’t know, and I don’t care. What I do care about is that there’s not a single message from Ellie. I never heard from her after she left the shop last night. I never heard from her this morning. She’s awake. She’s alive. She’s at Medium Roast right now. I’ve been seeing flashes of her through the window all morning, and it’s slowly killing me. But there is nothing but radio silence. Nothing but a crowd on the corner, making it look twice as busy on the opposite side.

The protesters—I can see Walt from here, running his mouth to whoever passes by—are forcing an unintended consequence on Medium Roast. The busier it looks outside, the more people hesitate to go in. To be fair, it is busy. It’s Saturday. It’s a circus. But the longer they stand there, glaring at me, the more people they send right into my hands.

I wish I could feel more triumphant about it.

“What’s a cappuccino?” says the lady at the front of the line, head tilted back to look at the menu. It reminds me of the way Ellie would throw her head back when she came. Need tightens every muscle in my body, a lance through my heart.

I have ten seconds. I’m sending a fucking message.

Have you forgiven me yet?

It’s not the right thing, and I know it the moment I hit send, but the coffee shop virgin at the front of the line demands my attention.

My answer comes ten minutes later at the tables in front, right by the window. I’m wiping them down in a micro-lull between customers, and I feel it—someone’s watching me. Someone other than that idiot Walt and his friend Morris. I look up. They’re both talking to a third guy, and he’s pointing feverishly at Medium Roast. It’s not them.

Ellie stands in the front window, perfectly still.

When she sees me looking, she raises one hand, her middle finger held high.

Message received.

* * *

Rosie screams, her voice as high-pitched as the espresso grinder, setting my teeth on edge.

“Sweetie, you’ve got to sleep,” I say. I breathe in. I breathe out. I don’t get angry with the baby. I keep my cool. That’s what I’m doing. I’m keeping my cool. She’s the baby and I’m the one in a position of authority. She’s the one having a hard time. I am fine. We are fine. We will be fine, anyway. She’s overtired and overexcited and she can’t lie down. Rosie sits up on her little legs in the crib and reaches for me, howling.

When my phone starts to ring, I’ve had it.

I scoop her up from the crib and start walking, Rosie shrieking in her pajamas. It’s the same number as before. With a low curse, I swipe across the screen. Whoever’s on the other end of the line is going to get a piece of my mind.

“Hello?” I growl into the phone.

“Dash,” says a woman, and at the sound of her voice, all the rage in my chest is set loose. “How are you? How are things?”

It’s Serena.

“Can you hear me?” There’s a muffled rustling on the other end of the line, something like static. “It’s one of those internet phones from a café. We’re back in from the countryside for a day or two and I thought I’d call.”

“Serena—”

“How’s Rosie? Oh, I miss her,” she says wistfully as if it were Rosie who decided to flee halfway across the planet. “Is that her?”

It almost kills me on the spot. Is that her? Rosie is wailing now, her cheek pressed against my shoulder. There are so many things I want to shout at Serena that I can’t choose. Not now. Maybe not ever. Does she know she signed away custody in the divorce agreement? Does she know there will be no second chance to waltz back into Rosie’s life? “It’s not a good time.”

“Is that Rosie?”

“Can you fucking hear her?” I spit into the phone. “Yes, Serena, that’s our daughter. I’m busy. Did you have anything important to say?”

This is her big chance, and I suck in a breath, waiting to see if she’s going to make anything of it. She could apologize right now, and it might lower the heat a little bit. If she’s any kind of mother at all, she’ll use these precious few seconds to tell me that she’s on her way back to the United States, that she wants to try harder, that she understands the damage she’s doing.

“No,” Serena says finally. “I’ll—I’ll call back another time.”

“That’s it?”

I can’t believe I ever married her. I can’t believe I ever loved her. There are no feelings left for this woman. None.

“I’ll call back another time,” she repeats, and I can tell from her tone that her mind is already elsewhere. A screaming child? No, not for her. She wants the laughter and the light. She doesn’t want to put in any of the work. The weight of it settles on my shoulders, heavier somehow in this moment.

“Goodbye.”

I hang up the call.

Rosie finally settles, relaxing against my shoulder, but I walk her outside into the night air, my chest pulsing with hurt. 

At the lakeshore, I stop and sway, Rosie’s breath deepening in my ear. “Maybe we should go,” I say to her, though she’s eleven months old and sleeping. “There’s only one person here I want to talk to. Besides you, anyway. And she’s done with me.”