The Call

You Seriously Don't Want to Know- Chapter 8

A phone call she’s avoided for years finally gets made.
A name surfaces.
And what once felt like a threat begins to feel like an invitation.

For years, she’d tried not to think about what was missing — the words, the names, the proof.

But now a single name had risen through the static, soft but certain, the way truth sometimes does when you stop forcing it.

Kevin.

It was enough to make her reach for the phone.

She hadn’t wanted to call. Not really.

The envelope sat on the table like a loaded gun, and the ocean kept crashing behind the windows.

Not because she didn’t care — but because she cared too much.

Because once you opened a door like that, you had to walk through it.

And you never knew what you might find on the other side.

Still, Paul was the only person left who might remember what she never could.

She waited until late afternoon. Calvin, Paul’s partner, would either be out running errands or napping, and Paul usually liked this time of day. The light would be slanting across the living room, and if he was feeling lucid, he’d say things that made the world tilt.

The phone rang four times before he picked up.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Uncle Paul. It’s me.”

“Oh, honey! You sound far away.”

“I guess I am.”

She pictured him on the couch in that ridiculous robe, a dog-eared playbill beside him, maybe an old photo album cracked open on his lap, and his two miniature Yorkies — Willie and Eddie — tucked on either side.

“I wanted to ask you something. About Elle.”

He sighed. Not heavily — just enough to shift the air.

“She’s been around lately,” he said.

Her throat tightened.
“Around how?”

“Oh, just the usual. Dreams. Songs on the radio. You know how she is.”

She didn’t.

But she wanted to. She wanted to remember something other than snow and sirens and the look on her father’s face when he said they had to be brave.

“Do you remember what they were going to name the baby?”

Another pause. Longer this time.

“Darryl, I think,” Paul said carefully. “Or maybe Kevin. They argued about it once. She liked Kevin. Your dad thought it was too soft.”

She smiled — a small, strange thing.

Kevin.

That felt real. Familiar in a way Darryl never had.

“Too soft,” she repeated. “What does that even mean?”

“You said once she held on. After the crash. Until the baby…”

“I still believe that,” he said, voice low and steady. “She was stubborn, your mother. Fierce. She wasn’t going to leave until she knew. You know she saved your life. I know she tried to save Kevin.”

Something clicked in her chest.

Not clarity. Just a pull.

And he called him Kevin again.

“I haven’t been to the cemetery in years,” she said softly.

“It’s quiet there. Cold this time of year. But the birds still come.”

“Do you still go?”

“Sometimes I think I do. Calvin says I just dream it. But I always wake up with mud on my shoes.”

She didn’t know if he was joking. She wasn’t sure it mattered.

He’d had a couple of scares — falls when he was out getting the paper, which he insisted on doing. Calvin had given up trying to stop him. Everyone understood. Once Paul made up his mind, it was futile.

“Thanks, Uncle Paul.”

“Give her my love when you go. She always liked yellow roses.”

“I remember.”

She hung up.

The ocean crashed behind the windows.

Zee shifted beside the couch, head lifting. Listening. Waiting.

“We’ll go tomorrow,” she said aloud. Zee was going with her. Let the groundskeeper yell if he wanted to.

The dog wagged once, slow and certain.

The envelope was still on the table, unopened. She couldn’t bring it up. Not yet.

But now it felt less like a weapon,
and more like an invitation.

“Tomorrow, then.”