“Hah! I look old. Because I am.”
“You look wonderful to me. I’m so glad Dad found you.”
Godiva bent over the phone, her profile still. Rigo’s throat ached when he saw her lips tremble before she pressed them into a firm line. Her voice was husky as she said, “Alejo, I didn’t hear . . . only those post cards before you turned eighteen . . . all these years . . .”
“I wrote, Mom,” Alejo said, his voice equally husky. “All senior year of high school, and again, once I got out of the Navy.”
“Navy?”
Alejo laughed a little unsteadily. “You remember what time it was.”
“Vietnam War era,” Godiva said. “I forgot. But I never did pay any attention to the news in those days. You got drafted?”
Alejo rubbed his hand through his thick blue-black hair, the same shade hers had been. “Oh, I don’t even know where to start.”
Rigo leaned over. “You went back to high school.”
On the phone, Alejo said, “Right. My last post card, I asked you to send my birth certificate. Do you remember that?”
Godiva stared. “What? The last post card I got, you talked about the Golden Gate Bridge. I have every post card memorized. I have every one of them.”
Alejo looked confused. “But why didn’t you ever write back?”
“I did! I have—every year, including this one!”
Alejo rubbed his hand through his hair again, then whooshed out his breath. “Well, I guess I’d better start from there. We didn’t hear from you, after I wrote to give you the ranch address. So Dad made me write to the state for my birth certificate. That fall I went back to high school. He said we’d drive out to Illinois to find you after I graduated, but bam! A week after graduation I got my draft notice.”
He paused to look anxiously into the phone, as Godiva stared at him, her profile stunned.
Then he started talking again, more quickly. “Dad said to go for the Navy, which might lessen my chances of being thrown into the ground fight in Vietnam. I did. I spent my hitch on an aircraft carrier, repairing helicopter engines, because I’d learned about wiring at home. Anyway, before I started high school, I asked my old friend Lance to go to the box to check for mail for me, since you hadn’t written to me at the ranch. You remember Lance?”
“The skinny kid with glasses and an Afro bigger than he was? How could I forget him? You two were always making war against some bully you called Barf, when you weren’t making blanket forts. I distinctly recollect one winter you turned the living room into some kind of secret lair.”
“That’s Lance. He’s a shifter, too. He was the one who guessed what was happening to me. Dad told you about shifters, right?”
“He started to.”
“Anyway, about the post office box. Lance said he checked, but he never found anything. When my hitch in the Navy ended, I went to Illinois myself. Stayed with Lance. We went to our old place, but they said you’d moved out a couple years before. So I sat down and wrote a letter right them. After that, I wrote every year. Lance promised to keep checking the box for me, and send me anything he found. But he never found anything—including my letters. So we assumed you were getting them.”
“I didn’t,” she exclaimed. “And I kept checking. Then after I got an agent, she checked for me, as she’s Chicago-based. And I kept writing to you, because my letters were never in the box, so I assumed you were getting them, but not writing back for some reason. . .”
She stopped, and Rigo could tell from their mirrored expressions that both were trying not to make the other unhappy. Then she pasted on a smile that hurt him to look at as she said, “I don’t want to sound like I’m arguing. Especially now, when we’ve finally reconnected. I’m so glad you’re alive, though I can’t even begin to understand what any of this means. I have a thousand questions, and I bet you do, too. But I can see how tired you are, and it’s got to be one a.m. back there right now.”
“I was up all last night,” Alejo admitted. “Couldn’t sleep. And work starts early. Mom, I’m so glad Dad found you!”
Rigo watched Godiva press her lips firmly again, but her spine was as straight as it had been when she faced down drunken, rowdy customers when she was eighteen. “Well, now I know you’re okay. The rest can wait until tomorrow. Right now I . . . need to hear some stuff from . . . your dad.”
“Right. Got it. Good night, Mom. I love you.”
“Love you, too,” Godiva whispered, and handed the phone back.
It was warm from her fingers. Rigo’s chest ached with the need to take her in his arms, but he kept himself still. He would have to earn his way back into her trust, a step at a time.
He was about to speak when her phone rang. She started, then pulled it out of her purse, and hit the speaker button. “Doris?”
“Just wanted to know if you’re okay, or if I should call out the Mounties.”
“Naw, I’m fine,” Godiva said. “Thanks for checking in.” She thumbed the phone off.