She didn't move for a long time. Then she said, "Night, Cal," and her voice did something on the Cal, and she went away.
He thought about it after, in the dark. A promise to somebody. He tried Grandpa, but Grandpa didn't make people promise things; Grandpa just didn't tell you things in the first place. He tried Dad, which was a stupid thing to try — Dad couldn't afford Caleb's birthday card last year, it had come three weeks late with a ten-dollar bill in it and Happy 12th written inside, and Caleb had been turning thirteen. That left Jordan. But Jordan was eleven. What kind of promise could an eleven-year-old make a grown woman keep?
He fell asleep before he got anywhere. On the ninth day, the phone call came.
* * *
He was in seventh-period science when his phone buzzed in his pocket, which it wasn't supposed to do in class, which was why he'd put it on vibrate instead of silent. Mr. Feeney was explaining the rock cycle with a diagram that looked like a bad tattoo. Caleb slid the phone out under the desk.
MOM: Are you out at 2:50?
MOM: Need a huge favor. Emergency but not a scary one. Everyone is ok.
MOM: Can you walk to Eastbrook and pick up Jordan from the nurse? I'm mid-procedure and can't leave for at least an hour. Grandpa's not picking up. I already called the office and told them you're coming. You're on his list.
MOM: I'm so sorry. I'll explain tonight. Please.
Caleb read it twice. He typed ok. He looked at the ok for a second. He deleted it and typed ok is he sick and then deleted that too and just sent ok.
Eastbrook Elementary was eight blocks from Lincoln Middle, down Fremont and across the tracks and past the Dollar General, and Caleb had walked it a thousand times when he was a kid going the other direction, back when he went to Eastbrook and Jordan was in kindergarten there and Mom made Caleb walk him to his classroom every morning. Jordan used to hold the strap of Caleb's backpack instead of his hand, because hand-holding was for babies. He'd hang onto that strap the whole way down the first-grade hallway, past the paper turkeys and the paper snowmen and the paper whatevers, and let go at the very last second, at the door, and not look back.
The school still smelled the same. Floor wax and crayon and that cafeteria smell, like hot rolls and wet mop. The lady at the front desk was new, but she knew who he was before he said anything. "You're the brother," she said, and gave him a sticker that said VISITOR, and pointed.
The nurse's office was a small room with a cot and a scale and a poster of a cartoon tooth brushing its own face. Mrs. Halvorsen was still the nurse; she'd been the nurse when Caleb was there, and she still had the reading glasses on the beaded chain. She said, "Oh, look at you, you're a foot taller," and then, lower, looking past him at the cot, "He's okay. He's had a rough one."