The line clicked free. “I’m back, honey.”

“How’s Estella?”

“Fine. Making me money, like she’s supposed to. She’s having trouble with her dogs.”

Estella, I knew, had lots of dogs. “How are you doing?” I said. “What’s Vince up to?”

“Oh, you know Vince. He just went out to the store to buy a new deep-fat fryer. His latest thing is learning to make cannolis.”

Though born and raised in Bangor, my stepfather was quite serious about his Italian roots, and was always involved in some new culinary project: canning his own tomatoes for sauce, making his own sausages and ravioli, taking trips down to Boston to the North End to hunt up weird things like squid ink pasta or flayed rabbit haunches. Where he shopped for such things in Houston, I had no idea.

“Sounds like a plan.”

“It’s a mess is what it is. Flour and grease all over the place. The first fryer just about exploded. I’m worried about his cholesterol too.” She paused. “But I’m thinking maybe you didn’t call to talk about Vince’s cholesterol?”

“What makes you say that?”

“Oh, your voice, I guess. Something about it. I’m your mother, Jordan. Tell me what’s on your mind.”

“There’s really nothing.” I looked at my finger, its strange blunted tip; its tiny, orphaned nail. “I just bought a new drill.”

“You men and your toys. If Vince were here I’m sure he’d love to talk about it. You really called to tell me about your drill?”

I thought a moment. “I might be in love too.”

“You see?” I could hear the smile in her voice. “There was something. There’s a nice surprise. I’m happy to hear it. Is she nice? Does she love you back, this person?”

“I think so. I’m hoping so. I’m a bit out of practice. It’s Kate.”

“Kate. I’m sorry. I know about Kate, don’t I?”

“Joe’s daughter.”

The phone seemed to go dead a second. “ Jordan, isn’t she, excuse me, about thirteen? Do I need to fly up there right now?”

“That was years ago, Mama. She’s going to medical school. Will go, I mean.”

“How about that,” I heard my mother say. “Kate with the pigtails? She’s really a doctor, all grown up?”

I nodded to myself. “It surprised me too.”

“Well, that’s the thing about it,” my mother said. “It always sneaks up on you that way.”

“Was it a surprise with Daddy?”

“Daddy.” Her voice seemed to catch and hold on this strange word. “Your daddy, you mean?”

“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“Well, that was a long time ago, Jordan. But yes, it was. You know the story. Do you want me to tell it?”

How many years since she had done this? It seemed like forever, and no time at all. I said, “A dance.”

“That’s right. But not really the dance itself. After the dance. It was the summer after high school, so I was, I guess about eighteen, not a thing in my head, and a bunch of us went without dates to this thing, I guess you could call it a dance, though it was more like a party. And after, my friend, the one with the car, left with a boy, and your father gave me a ride home. I had no idea who he was, just some flyer from the base. We talked in the car, and I just knew. Both of us knew. I guess you were… thinking about him?”

“I guess I was, a little.”

“Well, you’re entitled. That’s perfectly fine if you were.”

“Tell me…” I stopped to breathe, embarrassed. But more than that: I was afraid.

Her voice was quiet. “Tell you what, Jordan?”

“Tell me… about the day he died.”

Silence, and I was sorry, so sorry I’d asked it. And yet I had to know.

“Mama-”

“No, no,” she answered firmly. “I said you were entitled, didn’t I? It was just one of those things, Jordan. The inquest said something about mechanical trouble. A faulty rotor, I think it was.”

I’d heard that, too, or remembered so. A faulty rotor, something that went round and round, and then for some reason stopped, sending my father into the sea.

“How’d they know it was a rotor if they never found the plane?”

“Well, they did find it, Jordan. I thought you knew that. It was a pretty expensive piece of military hardware.”

“But not Daddy.”

“No, honey,” she said. “Not your daddy.”

The line went quiet, and I heard my mother take a long, melancholy breath. I pictured her in her bedroom office in this distant city her life had taken her to, looking out her window at the lawn and thinking about these old, sorrowful things.

“Mama?”

“I’m sorry, honey. You’re just making me a little sad, is all. I was just a baby myself, really. I wasn’t even twenty-two when it happened.”

I remembered something else. “Everybody called him Hero, didn’t they? Short for Heronimus.”

“That’s right. They did.”

Silence fell once more. I looked at my finger again, rubbing the end of it with my thumb. “The day you found out about Daddy. Did anything else happen?”

“Anything else, honey?”

I shook my head. “I don’t even know what I’m thinking about.”

“I think that was all, Jordan. It was plenty.”

I moved the phone to my right hand. Cars passed on the street, tourists, people I knew. In the close heat of the tiny booth, I’d begun to sweat.

“You’re a lot like him, you know,” my mother said quietly. “I’ve always thought so.”

I said, “Like Daddy.”

“ Jordan,” she said, and I heard her breathing change, “you’re making me sad again. It’s not your fault. But I’m going to put the phone down now.”

Before I could say anything, there was a dull thud on the line. I waited, the receiver pressed to my ear, listening to the soft sound she made as she wept, two thousand miles away. Please don’t cry, Mama, I thought, please don’t. A minute passed.

“There now,” she said. “All better.”

“I’m sorry, Mama. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Don’t be, Jordan. You just blindsided me a little bit. It’s funny to go back like that.”

“Is it a good life down there?” I said. “Are you happy?”

“Shouldn’t I be the one asking you that?”

“Well, let’s just say.”

“Oh, it’s hot as hell, Jordan. And the trees are all wrong. It’s funny, but that’s the thing that gets me the most, the trees. And missing you, sometimes. All the time. But yes. On the whole, yes. It’s a good life. Vince is the sweetest man alive, I write my books, the winters are easy as pie.” She stopped. “Your finger, Jordan.” Her voice was amazed. “You put it in the fan. I remember now. That’s what you were asking about, wasn’t it?”

“I guess it was.”

“Your father was always telling me to put it up on the table, someplace high and out of reach, but it was so hot that day, I guess I just forgot. I was cooking dinner, and you were playing on the floor, and then Colonel Graffam came to tell me, and that awful chaplain, I forget his name, everybody hated him. I guess I left you alone and somehow you got it stuck in the fan.”

“I think I did it on purpose, Mama. At least that’s what I remember.”

“Why would you have done that? No, it was my fault, honey, for leaving the fan where I did. God, it was an awful mess, blood everywhere, and you screaming like you did. It was all so crazy. I’d just found out about your father, and there I was, rushing you off to the doctor, not even a second to think about what just happened. The colonel offered to take you but I wouldn’t have it, just wrapped your hand in a towel and charged off to the infirmary. How could I have forgotten a thing like that?”

“Sounds to me like you remember pretty well.”

“But the thing is, I didn’t, not at first. Not until you asked about it. Why should that be?” She was silent a moment, lost in this question. Then: “It’s all right, isn’t it? There isn’t something wrong with it?”

“It’s fine,” I said, and wiggled it, as if she could somehow see. “Same as always. I’m having a little trouble playing the violin, but otherwise, no worries.”

I was glad to hear her laugh. “Well, that’s a relief,” she said. “You gave me a start there. I was worried something was wrong with it. Jordan?”