Some distances are measured in miles.
Others are measured in the things we meant to say, the calls we never made, and the time we let pass.
Tonight, Chesterton Radio presents an original story set on a winter evening in the river town of Bellweather.
A freezing rain is falling.
The roads are beginning to ice.
And high on the bluff above the river, an old radio operator is about to hear a voice he has never heard before.
Chesterton Radio presents...
Part One — Distance
The freezing rain began just after dark.
Thomas Brennan heard it before he saw it: a few hard ticks against the upstairs window, irregular at first, like someone throwing grains of rice at the glass. Then another. Then three together.
He glanced toward the window but didn’t get up.
“Whiskey Zero Romeo Delta, this is Kilo Zero Tango Bravo November. Good evening.”
A wash of static filled the room.
Then a man’s voice emerged from somewhere far beyond the ice and the dark.
“Kilo Zero Tango Bravo November, Whiskey Zero Romeo Delta. Well, good evening. Thomas, is that you?”
“Depends who’s asking.”
“It’s Ed.”
“Then no.”
Ed laughed.
“I knew it.”
“Thomas is a responsible man. Goes to bed early. Doesn’t spend December evenings talking to people he can’t see.”
“What’s that make you?”
“Poorly supervised.”
Another burst of static. Then Ed came back stronger.
“You’ve got a good signal tonight. Five-nine here.”
“You’re five-seven. Maybe five-eight when the wind blows the right way.”
“That’s generosity from you.”
“Christmas is coming.”
Thomas leaned back in the old swivel chair.
His radio room occupied what had once been the smallest bedroom in the house. Over the years it had become something between a workshop, library and museum. Two radios sat side by side on the desk, one new enough to have menus Thomas disliked and another old enough to have switches that made satisfying mechanical clicks. Above them hung a clock set to UTC. Maps covered one wall. QSL cards covered most of another.
Japan. Ireland. Alaska. Brazil. Australia.
Some were thirty or forty years old.
A row of logbooks occupied the shelf above the desk, their spines labeled in Thomas’s small, precise handwriting.
There were photographs too.
Those had nothing written on them.
“How’s the weather up there?” Ed asked.
Thomas turned toward the window.
Bellweather lay below him on the bluff, its old brick downtown gathered close to the river. Streetlights traced Main Street. Beyond them, headlights crawled across the bridge in both directions.
The river itself had disappeared.
At night it became a broad black absence between two collections of lights.
Beyond it, several miles away, another town glowed faintly against the low winter sky.
“It’s started,” Thomas said.
“Snow?”
“Ice.”
“Ah.”
“Town’s still lit. Bridge is moving.”
He watched a pair of headlights make their way across.
“Other side looks clear enough.”
“You staying put?”
Thomas looked at the coffee pot beside the radio.
“I have coffee, heat, half a meatloaf and nowhere I particularly need to be.”
“That’s either excellent planning or old age.”
“Engineering.”
“Same thing with better paperwork.”
“Careful, Ed.”
“All right, all right. I’ll let you work the world. Good hearing you, Thomas.”
“You too. Stay warm.”
“Whiskey Zero Romeo Delta, clear.”
“Kilo Zero Tango Bravo November, clear.”
The relay clicked.
Ed disappeared.
Static took his place.
Thomas sat for a moment listening to nothing in particular.
The freezing rain was coming faster now.
He got up and crossed to the coffee pot.
The room had two chairs. Thomas’s operating chair and, beside the window, an older wooden chair with a faded blue cushion.
He bumped it lightly as he passed.
“Sorry.”
He stopped.
There was no one there.
Thomas continued to the coffee pot, poured the last of it into a ceramic mug and took a drink.
He grimaced.
“Anne, this coffee is—”
The sentence stopped by itself.
The clock ticked.
The radio hissed quietly behind him.
Thomas looked down at the mug.
“Terrible.”
He returned to the desk.
A photograph stood beside the older radio. Thomas didn’t look directly at it as he sat down, though his hand straightened its frame before reaching for his pen.
He entered Ed’s call sign in the logbook.
Then he began turning the tuning knob.
Voices drifted past.
A man in Colorado talking about an antenna.
Someone in Oklahoma discussing the temperature.
A strong station calling CQ.
A conversation Thomas had already heard twice about an amplifier that refused to behave.
He kept turning.
“—roads are icing over pretty good north of here,” someone was saying. “County trucks are out, but I wouldn’t want to be driving it.”
Thomas stopped tuning.
“You expecting much accumulation?” another voice asked.
“Quarter inch, maybe more if this keeps up.”
Something cracked outside.
Thomas looked toward the window.
A tree limb, somewhere down the hill.
“There goes somebody’s Saturday.”
The lamp flickered.
The radio went dark.
For half a second the room was silent.
Then the power returned.
The radio display came back to life.
“Don’t.”
Thomas tapped the desk.
“You and I have an agreement. I pay the bill. You remain electricity.”
The receiver settled back into its familiar hiss.
He continued down the band.
Then stopped.
Thomas leaned forward.
There had been something underneath the static.
Not quite a voice.
He turned the dial back.
Nothing.
He waited.
A faint burst came through.
“...hello...?”
Thomas reached for the tuning knob.
The signal vanished.
He narrowed the filter and listened.
“Come on.”
Static.
Then:
“...anybody...”
Gone again.
Thomas picked up the microphone.
“Station calling, this is Kilo Zero Tango Bravo November. I hear you weakly. Try again.”
He released the switch.
Nothing.
Then a woman’s voice emerged from the noise.
“Can you... can you hear me now?”
“I can. You’re very weak. Give me your call sign.”
“My what?”
Thomas frowned.
“Your call sign.”
“I don’t have one.”
He looked at the radio.
“Then what exactly are you transmitting on?”
“A radio.”
“We’ve narrowed it considerably.”
“Look, I don’t know. It’s in the car.”
Thomas sat a little straighter.
“What kind of radio?”
“I don’t know what kind of radio.”
“Does it have a name on it?”
There was movement at the other end. Fabric rubbing against the microphone. A mechanical scraping sound.
Windshield wipers, Thomas thought.
“Hang on.”
“Don’t move the microphone too far.”
“I’m trying to read it.”
“Read without moving.”
“That’s a useful skill.”
“Took me years.”
For the first time he heard something almost like a laugh.
“There’s... Midland. It says Midland.”
“All right. Better. Is it installed in the vehicle?”
“Yes.”
“Your vehicle?”
A pause.
“Technically.”
“That’s an interesting answer.”
“It’s my father’s truck.”
Thomas glanced at the clock.
“All right. What’s your name?”
“Ellie.”
“Ellie, I’m Thomas.”
“Hi, Thomas.”
“Where are you?”
There was a longer pause this time.
“That’s sort of the problem.”
Thomas stopped moving.
“What problem?”
“I went off the road.”
He put down his pen.
“Define off.”
“I’m looking at the road through the passenger window.”
Something in Thomas changed.
Not dramatically. He didn’t raise his voice or begin issuing commands.
He simply stopped being a man passing a winter evening at his radio.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Did you hit your head?”
“No.”
“Airbags?”
“Didn’t go off.”
“Anybody else in the vehicle?”
“No.”
“Engine running?”
“Yes.”
“Turn it off.”
“What?”
“Turn the engine off.”
“It’s twenty degrees out here.”
“And I don’t know whether your exhaust pipe is buried in snow, mud or the side of Missouri.”
“I’m not in Missouri.”
“Good. We’ve eliminated a state. Turn the engine off.”
“But—”
“Ellie.”
He waited.
“Engine off until we know the exhaust is clear.”
A sigh came through the radio.
Then the faint sound of an engine disappeared.
“Happy?”
“Immensely. Fuel level?”
“Just over half.”
“Good. Phone?”
“No service.”
“None?”
“It comes up with one bar and then disappears. I tried 911 twice.”
“Did either call connect?”
“No.”
Thomas pulled a road atlas from the shelf beside his desk and spread it open.
“Last place you knew exactly where you were.”
“I don’t know.”
“Think.”
“I am thinking.”
“Do it geographically.”
“Is that different?”
“For the moment, yes.”
Silence.
“There was a gas station.”
“Name?”
“I didn’t stop.”
“Town?”
“I don’t—”
She stopped.
“I wasn’t exactly taking notes.”
“Ellie, I’m not criticizing you. I’m locating you.”
Another silence.
“Okay.”
“What do you remember?”
“A gas station. On the right. One of those old ones with two pumps.”
Thomas picked up his pencil.
“Useful. What else?”
“A church.”
“Before or after the station?”
“After.”
“How long after?”
“Five minutes? Ten?”
“Fine. What kind?”
“What kind of church?”
“Yes.”
“Church-shaped.”
Thomas almost smiled.
“Excellent.”
“It was dark, Thomas.”
“Steeple?”
“Yes.”
“Brick? Stone? White clapboard?”
“White.”
“Cemetery?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
“Which side of the road?”
“My side.”
“And which direction were you driving?”
“South.”
“You’re certain?”
“Mostly.”
“Mostly isn’t a compass direction.”
“My phone map said south before it stopped loading.”
“Good enough.”
Thomas made a mark on the map.
“Did you cross railroad tracks?”
“Yes.”
“Before the church?”
“After.”
“How long?”
“Maybe two minutes.”
“Then what?”
“Trees. Fields. Nothing.”
“Any intersections?”
“One.”
“Stop sign?”
“No.”
“Road sign?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Think about the headlights catching it.”
He waited.
The rain tapped against his window.
Through the radio, he could hear ice tapping against hers.
“There was a number,” Ellie said.
“What number?”
“Six... maybe sixty-something.”
“Sixty-four? Sixty-eight?”
“Sixty-eight.”
Thomas’s pencil stopped.
“County 68?”
“Maybe.”
“Did you turn onto it?”
“No. I stayed straight.”
Thomas traced the road with his finger.
Gas station.
Church.
Tracks.
County Road 68.
He knew where she was.
Or close to it.
“All right.”
“What?”
“I think I know the road.”
“You do?”
“Maybe.”
“That’s not very reassuring.”
“False confidence is free. Accurate confidence takes a little longer.”
He pulled the map closer.
“Can you see anything from the car?”
“Trees.”
“Anything beyond them?”
“It’s dark.”
“Look.”
“Thomas—”
“Don’t get out. Just look.”
He heard her shifting in the seat. Then the squeak of a glove wiping condensation or frost from glass.
“I can’t—”
She stopped.
“Wait.”
Thomas’s hand rested on the map.
“What?”
“Lights.”
“How many?”
“A lot.”
“Close?”
“No.”
“Describe them.”
“They’re... down below me.”
He waited.
“And then there’s black.”
“Black where?”
“Between me and the lights.”
Thomas rose from his chair.
He crossed to the window.
Below him, Bellweather still glowed against the winter darkness. Main Street. The courthouse. The red light on the old grain elevator.
Beyond them was the river.
Black.
And beyond the river, the lights on the opposite hills.
“Do you see anything moving?” he asked.
“Moving?”
“Lights in a line. Cars.”
“Yes.”
“Left to right or right to left?”
“Both.”
Thomas watched headlights moving across the bridge.
“Bridge,” he said.
“What?”
“You’re looking at the Bellweather bridge.”
“Bellweather?”
“Yes.”
“That’s where you are?”
“Yes.”
There was silence at the other end.
Then Ellie said, almost to herself:
“I can see your town.”
Thomas looked through the freezing rain toward the scattered lights on the opposite bluff.
“And I can see yours.”
Neither spoke for several seconds.
The radio hissed between them.
“So where am I?” Ellie finally asked.
Thomas returned to the desk.
He bent over the map.
“Across the river.”
He picked up his pencil.
“Give me a minute.”
Outside Thomas Brennan’s window, the ice continued to fall.
Across the dark water, the distant lights remained where they had always been.
END OF PART ONE
THE LIGHTS ACROSS THE RIVER
Part Two — Two Strangers
Thomas studied the map.
“Give me the church again.”
“The church?”
“White. Cemetery beside it. You passed it before the railroad tracks.”
“Yes.”
“And the gas station was before the church.”
“Yes.”
“How far?”
“I told you. Five minutes. Maybe ten.”
“That is a hundred percent difference.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t maintain a proper log while sliding into a ditch.”
Thomas looked up from the map.
“Fair point.”
He found County Road 68 again and followed the thin gray line north with his pencil. There were three roads that might fit what Ellie had described. Two came close enough to the river for her to see Bellweather. Only one climbed high enough to put the bridge below her.
“Did the road curve before you went off?”
“I think so.”
“Left or right?”
“Thomas.”
“Yes?”
“I was busy.”
He smiled despite himself.
“All right.”
He traced the road farther.
“Did you pass a farmhouse?”
“I passed about four thousand farmhouses.”
“Any with a red light on a tower behind it?”
There was a pause.
“Yes.”
Thomas stopped.
“You’re sure?”
“I remember wondering why anybody needed a radio tower in the middle of nowhere.”
Thomas looked around his own radio room.
“I’ll overlook that.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
He put the pencil down.
“I think I’ve got you within about two miles.”
“That’s good, right?”
“It’s better than two counties.”
Thomas reached for the microphone of the second radio.
“Don’t go anywhere.”
Ellie was silent for a moment.
Then:
“I’ll do my best.”
Thomas laughed.
It surprised him enough that he looked at the radio.
“All right. That one was mine.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll be back.”
He moved to the local repeater and keyed the microphone.
“This is Kilo Zero Tango Bravo November. Any station monitoring with access to Bellweather County dispatch?”
Static answered.
Thomas waited.
“Kilo Zero Tango Bravo November, this is November Zero Charlie Mike. Go ahead, Thomas.”
Thomas recognized the voice.
“Charlie, I’ve got a motorist off the road across the river, probably south of County 68 near the old Lutheran church. She’s in radio contact with me but doesn’t have reliable cell service. Can you relay to dispatch?”
“Absolutely. Injuries?”
“None reported. One occupant. Vehicle in a ditch. I don’t have an exact location yet.”
“Stand by.”
“Standing by.”
Thomas switched back to Ellie.
“You still there?”
“I was starting to think you’d abandoned me.”
“I’ve known you twelve minutes. It’s too early in the relationship.”
“That hasn’t stopped people before.”
Thomas paused.
There was something in the sentence, but Ellie had already moved on.
“What did you find?”
“I have another operator contacting county dispatch. We need to narrow you down a little more.”
“Okay.”
“Before we do that, I want you to check the exhaust.”
“I thought you told me not to get out.”
“I did.”
“So now I should get out.”
“I’m revising the specification.”
“You really are an engineer, aren’t you?”
“Retired.”
“That explains why you have time to argue with strangers.”
“I had time before. I was simply paid for it.”
He pushed the map aside.
“Listen carefully. Is the truck stable?”
“I think so.”
“Don’t think. Does it move when you shift your weight?”
Ellie moved.
“No.”
“Which side is uphill?”
“Driver’s side.”
“Can you open that door?”
“I think so.”
“Take the flashlight from your phone. Keep one hand on the truck. Don’t walk around it if the ground is slick. I only want you to see whether the tailpipe is blocked. If you can’t do it safely, get back inside.”
“Understood.”
Thomas listened as the driver’s door opened.
The storm entered the radio all at once.
Wind.
Ice.
Ellie gasped.
“Good Lord.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. It’s just colder when it’s actually cold.”
“An important scientific discovery. Stay with the truck.”
“I am.”
Her voice moved farther from the microphone.
Thomas hated that.
“Ellie?”
“I’m here.”
“Keep talking.”
“About what?”
“I don’t care. Describe what you’re doing.”
“I’m standing beside the truck.”
“Good.”
“My shoes are completely wrong for this.”
“Also useful.”
“I bought them yesterday.”
“Tragic.”
“They were expensive.”
“Then they’ll be cold more elegantly.”
She laughed.
Thomas heard her move.
“Okay. I’m at the back.”
“Can you see the exhaust?”
“Yes.”
“Clear?”
A pause.
“Yes. It’s clear.”
“Good. Get back inside.”
“I thought you wanted more information.”
“I have the information.”
“You’re very bossy.”
“And yet you’re going back inside.”
A few seconds later the door slammed.
Her breathing was faster.
Thomas waited until it slowed.
“Start the engine.”
The engine came through the radio.
“Heat on.”
“It is.”
“Good. Run it ten minutes. We’ll repeat that periodically.”
“Are you going to tell me when ten minutes is up?”
“Yes.”
“So now you’re also a timer.”
“I have many skills.”
Thomas wrote the time in the margin of the map.
He noticed that the freezing rain against his own window had become a steady rattle.
Across the valley, the bridge still carried traffic, but less of it now.
A light blinked out on the far hillside.
Then another.
His local radio crackled.
“Kilo Zero Tango Bravo November, November Zero Charlie Mike.”
Thomas switched over.
“Go ahead, Charlie.”
“Dispatch has it. Sheriff’s deputy is coming from the south side. County 68 is apparently getting pretty ugly. They’ve already had one truck turn around up there.”
“Copy. Any estimate?”
“Not yet. They’d like a better location if we can get it.”
“Working on it.”
“Tell your motorist to stay put.”
Thomas glanced at the other radio.
“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”
Charlie laughed.
“Keep us posted. November Zero Charlie Mike.”
“Kilo Zero Tango Bravo November.”
Thomas switched back.
“Good news.”
“I like good news.”
“County knows you’re out there. Sheriff’s deputy is trying to reach you.”
“Trying?”
“Roads are getting bad.”
“That’s less good.”
“Still good. Just not extravagantly good.”
“How long?”
“They don’t know yet.”
The engine hummed at Ellie’s end.
Thomas could hear the blower running.
“Are you getting warmer?”
“A little.”
“Hands?”
“Cold.”
“Any gloves?”
A pause.
“You’re not going to like this.”
“Try me.”
“No.”
Thomas closed his eyes.
“You drove into an ice storm without gloves.”
“I didn’t drive into an ice storm. The ice storm happened while I was driving.”
“The storm will be relieved to know it was at fault.”
“I have a coat.”
“Hat?”
“No.”
“Blanket?”
“I don’t know.”
“Check behind the seat.”
There was rustling.
“What exactly do you think my father keeps back here?”
“You’ve already told me it’s his truck. Therefore: jumper cables, six screwdrivers, a tow strap, three things he hasn’t used since 1998 and a blanket.”
More rustling.
A pause.
“Oh.”
Thomas smiled.
“Blanket?”
“Two.”
“Of course.”
“One smells like a dog.”
“Use the other one.”
“The other one smells worse.”
“Then the dog gets the victory.”
Ellie laughed again.
It was easier this time.
Thomas looked at the clock.
Six minutes.
“Wrap up. Four more minutes of engine time.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t call me sir.”
“Why?”
“It makes me feel old.”
“How old are you?”
Thomas hesitated.
“Seventy-two.”
There was a pause long enough to offend him.
“Wow.”
“Careful.”
“No, I just—”
“You thought I was younger.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You were about to.”
“I was going to say sixty-eight.”
“Turn the engine off.”
“That’s retaliation.”
“Three minutes early. Actions have consequences.”
“Thomas.”
He let her suffer for a second.
“I’m kidding.”
“You’re not very nice.”
“I’ve been told.”
The words came out easily.
Then, for no reason Thomas wanted to examine, his eyes moved toward the photograph beside the radio.
Anne was laughing in it.
Not at the camera.
At him.
He looked away.
They waited.
The strange thing about radio, Thomas had always thought, was how quickly a disembodied voice could acquire a personality.
He had talked with men in Australia whose faces he never saw, with a schoolteacher in northern Canada, a ship’s engineer in the Atlantic, a priest in Ireland, a twelve-year-old boy in Arizona making his first contact.
A voice was enough.
Sometimes more than enough.
Ellie had stopped talking.
“Still there?”
“Yes.”
“You got quiet.”
“So did you.”
Thomas checked the clock.
“Engine off.”
She shut it down.
The silence inside her truck returned.
It sounded colder than before.
Thomas didn’t like that either.
“Tell me about the road,” he said.
“What about it?”
“Why were you on it?”
“I was driving.”
“I’d gathered that.”
“I took a wrong turn.”
“You were already on the wrong side of the river for that to explain much.”
“How do you know where I was going?”
“I don’t.”
“Exactly.”
Thomas waited.
Ellie sighed.
“I was taking the scenic route.”
“At night.”
“Yes.”
“During an ice storm.”
“It wasn’t an ice storm when I started.”
“Without gloves.”
“Are we going to keep returning to the gloves?”
“Probably.”
“Fine. I was driving around.”
Thomas made another mark on the map.
“People don’t usually drive around on unfamiliar county roads in freezing rain for recreation.”
“Maybe I do.”
“Then your hobbies need work.”
Silence again.
Thomas let it remain.
Outside, another branch cracked.
The lamp flickered.
Thomas looked toward it.
For two seconds the room dimmed, then recovered.
Across the river, a cluster of lights vanished.
“You still there?” Ellie asked.
“Yes.”
“You disappeared.”
“Power flickered.”
“Ours too.”
Thomas looked across the dark river.
“Whose?”
“The lights.”
He stood and went to the window.
The far hillside was darker than it had been ten minutes earlier.
“You can still see Bellweather?”
“Yes.”
“Bridge?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
There was a pause.
“It looks nice from here,” Ellie said.
Thomas looked down at Bellweather.
From his window he could see the courthouse clock tower, the old grain elevator, the church steeple on Third Street, and the lights along the river road.
From this height there were no potholes.
No empty storefronts.
No peeling paint.
Just lights.
He looked across the river toward Ellie’s side.
“So does yours.”
Neither said anything more about it.
Thomas returned to the desk.
The local radio came alive.
“Thomas, you there?”
He switched over.
“Go ahead, Charlie.”
“Deputy can’t make the north approach. Tree down and ice on the grade. Dispatch is sending him around by Mill Creek Road.”
“How much longer?”
“Hard to say. Thirty minutes minimum. Maybe forty-five.”
Thomas looked at the clock.
“Understood.”
“They’ve got county public works coming from the other direction, but they’re spreading pretty thin.”
“Copy.”
“Still got your motorist?”
Thomas looked at Ellie’s radio.
“Yes.”
“Good. Keep her warm.”
“I intend to.”
He switched back.
Ellie had heard enough to understand.
“Forty-five minutes?”
“Maybe less.”
“He said minimum.”
“He also said maybe.”
“Thomas.”
“There’s nothing useful in worrying about which word he chose.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“Yes.”
The answer came so quickly that Ellie went silent.
Thomas leaned back.
“Yes,” he said again, more quietly. “It is.”
He looked at the thermometer mounted beside the window.
Twenty-three degrees.
Probably colder across the river.
“Ellie, how cold does the truck feel now?”
“Cold.”
“Shivering?”
“A little.”
“Start the engine again.”
“It hasn’t been that long.”
“I know.”
The engine started.
Thomas wrote down the time.
For several minutes neither of them spoke.
He could hear the blower through her microphone.
She could probably hear the clock in his room.
Two strangers sitting in two pools of light with a river between them.
“So,” Ellie said finally.
“So.”
“You really want to know why I was driving around.”
“No.”
“You’ve asked me three times.”
“I asked once.”
“You asked in three different ways.”
“That’s still one question.”
“Engineer math?”
“Persistence.”
She took a breath.
“I had a fight with my dad.”
Thomas’s pencil stopped.
He didn’t say anything.
“I didn’t plan to go driving around,” Ellie continued. “I planned to go home.”
“And?”
“And I didn’t.”
Thomas waited.
“I got in the truck. I drove past the turn. Then I kept going.”
“Why?”
“Because I was angry.”
“That explains a remarkable percentage of human travel.”
She gave a small laugh.
“Probably.”
“What was the fight about?”
“I thought you didn’t want to know.”
“I don’t. But you’ve started now.”
“You’re impossible.”
“So I’ve been told.”
Again the phrase.
Again Thomas’s eyes moved, almost against his will, toward Anne’s photograph.
Ellie continued.
“I got offered a job.”
“That sounds terrible.”
“It’s in Denver.”
“Ah.”
“I live about fifteen minutes from my parents now.”
“That’s somewhat farther.”
“Yes, Thomas. I know where Denver is.”
“I was establishing scale.”
“The job is good. Really good. It’s exactly what I’ve been trying to get for two years.”
“And your father doesn’t want you to go.”
“He thinks it’s a mistake.”
“Is it?”
Ellie didn’t answer immediately.
“I don’t think so.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“The truth would be efficient.”
“The truth is I don’t know.”
Thomas nodded to himself.
“Better.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you don’t have to know.”
“My father seems to think I do.”
“Your father presumably has the advantage of never having made an uncertain decision.”
Ellie laughed.
“Oh, you’d like him.”
“I’m beginning to.”
“Of course you are.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’re both the same.”
Thomas sat up.
“I’ve never met the man.”
“You don’t need to. You’re seventy-two. He’s sixty-four. You’re automatically on his team.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Old Man Solidarity.”
“Sixty-four is barely trained.”
Ellie laughed hard enough that the signal distorted.
Thomas found himself laughing too.
Then she said, “He told me I’m throwing my life away.”
Thomas stopped smiling.
“Did he say that?”
“Those exact words.”
“That’s not especially helpful.”
“Thank you.”
“I didn’t say he was wrong.”
“Oh, come on.”
“I said it wasn’t helpful.”
“You really can’t do it, can you?”
“Do what?”
“Take my side.”
“I am on your side.”
“You’re defending him.”
“Those are not mutually exclusive.”
The radio was quiet.
Thomas continued.
“He may be completely wrong about Denver.”
“He is.”
“He may be.”
“He is.”
“Fine. He is. That doesn’t mean he’s wrong about being worried.”
“He doesn’t trust me.”
“Possibly.”
“Thomas.”
“Or possibly he’s worried and incompetent at expressing it.”
“He’s a grown man.”
Thomas looked toward Anne’s photograph.
“That doesn’t cure it.”
Something in his voice made Ellie quiet.
Thomas turned his pencil between his fingers.
“People say things badly,” he said. “Especially when they care very much about what they’re trying to say.”
Ellie didn’t answer.
He wondered if he’d gone too far.
Then:
“He could just say he’s worried.”
“Yes.”
“Instead of telling me I’m ruining my life.”
“Yes.”
“He could say he doesn’t want me to go.”
“Yes.”
“He could say he’s going to miss me.”
Thomas looked at the dark window.
“Yes.”
“Why doesn’t he?”
Thomas thought about it.
“Maybe he thinks those things aren’t arguments.”
“What?”
“If he says he’ll miss you, that doesn’t give you a reason to stay. If he says Denver is a terrible idea, perhaps he thinks it does.”
“That is incredibly stupid.”
“Yes.”
“You’re defending him again.”
“No. This time I’m calling him stupid.”
“Fair.”
Thomas smiled.
“Did you tell him you’ll miss him?”
The radio went quiet.
“That is completely different.”
“Of course.”
“It is.”
“I agreed with you.”
“You agreed suspiciously.”
“I’ve been practicing.”
Another silence.
This one lasted longer.
Thomas heard the wind against Ellie’s microphone.
Then she said, “I shouldn’t have left like that.”
He said nothing.
“I mean, I still think he was wrong.”
“Those can both be true.”
“I know.”
Thomas looked at the clock.
“Engine off.”
“What?”
“Ten minutes.”
“Oh.”
The truck fell silent.
Thomas waited.
“Thomas?”
“Yes?”
“If I hadn’t found this radio...”
He knew the rest of the question.
“You did.”
“But if I hadn’t.”
“You did.”
She was quiet.
Thomas leaned toward the microphone.
“Help is coming, Ellie.”
“Okay.”
“Say it.”
“What?”
“Help is coming.”
“This feels ridiculous.”
“Humor an old man.”
“I thought seventy-two wasn’t old.”
“It is when useful.”
A small breath.
“Help is coming.”
“Good.”
Thomas sat back.
“Now put the blanket around your shoulders and complain about your father. It’ll keep your blood pressure up.”
She laughed.
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t push it.”
For the next twenty minutes they talked in pieces.
Not continuously.
The storm would interrupt them. Thomas would check with Charlie. Ellie would report a sound outside that turned out to be ice sliding from a tree. Thomas had her run the engine again. The deputy gained three miles and lost ten minutes. A county truck reported that Mill Creek Road was passable if approached slowly.
Between those things, they talked.
Ellie told him about Denver.
Not the job itself so much as the apartment she hadn’t found yet, the neighborhood she’d looked at online, and the absurd price of parking.
Thomas informed her that anyone voluntarily paying that much to park a car deserved careful supervision.
She told him he sounded exactly like her father.
He told her this was becoming insulting.
She asked what kind of engineer he’d been.
“Mechanical.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means electrical engineers blamed me when things didn’t work.”
“And what did you do?”
“Blamed software.”
“That seems healthy.”
“It sustained an industry.”
She laughed.
Thomas discovered he liked making her laugh.
He hadn’t intended to.
At some point he stopped looking at the clock every thirty seconds.
At some point Ellie stopped asking how long the deputy would be.
The radio still crackled between them.
The ice still fell.
But the silence no longer felt empty.
Thomas was checking the map again when Ellie said, “Can I ask you something?”
“You’ve been doing it all evening.”
“Something personal.”
Thomas’s pencil slowed.
“That sounds ominous.”
“Do you have kids?”
The pencil stopped.
His eyes moved toward the photograph beside the radio.
Not Anne this time.
Another photograph, partly hidden behind it.
A little girl sitting on his shoulders at a county fair.
She might have been six.
Thomas looked away.
“A daughter.”
“Just one?”
“One.”
“What’s her name?”
Thomas hesitated.
“Maggie.”
“Does she live around there?”
“Yes.”
“How far?”
Thomas turned toward the window.
Bellweather spread below him.
The bridge.
The river.
The dark hills beyond.
“Twelve miles.”
Ellie was quiet.
“Twelve?”
“Yes.”
“That’s close.”
Thomas reached for the other microphone.
As if summoned for the purpose, the local repeater crackled.
“Kilo Zero Tango Bravo November, November Zero Charlie Mike.”
Thomas answered immediately.
“Go ahead, Charlie.”
“Good news. Deputy made it past Mill Creek. He thinks he’s fifteen, maybe twenty minutes from the area.”
Thomas wrote the estimate beside the map.
“Excellent. I’ll keep her on frequency.”
“Still doing okay?”
Thomas glanced at Ellie’s radio.
“Yes.”
He paused.
“We’re doing fine.”
“Copy that. November Zero Charlie Mike.”
Thomas set the microphone down.
When he switched back, Ellie was waiting.
“Fifteen minutes,” he said.
“That’s good.”
“Very.”
He made another mark on the map.
For a moment there was only static.
Then Ellie said, “Thomas?”
“Yes?”
She paused.
Whatever question she had intended to ask, she seemed to reconsider it.
“Nothing.”
Thomas looked at the radio.
Across the river, another light went out.
“Start the truck,” he said. “Let’s get you warm before they arrive.”
The engine turned over.
Thomas listened until it settled into a steady idle.
Neither of them mentioned the twelve miles again.
Not yet.
END OF PART TWO
THE LIGHTS ACROSS THE RIVER
Part Three — The Mirror
For a while they listened to the truck run.
Thomas had become accustomed to its sound through the radio: the low idle beneath Ellie’s voice, the heater blower, the occasional sweep of the wipers when the windshield became too thick with ice to see through.
It was strange how quickly sounds acquired a geography.
He knew the room he was sitting in.
He had no idea what Ellie’s truck looked like, beyond what she had told him, but he had begun to know that too. The driver’s door that opened uphill. The blanket that smelled like a dog. The radio mounted somewhere below the dashboard. The cold glass. The ditch outside.
Two rooms, of a sort.
One on each side of the river.
Thomas looked at the clock.
“Engine off.”
“You really enjoy saying that.”
“I enjoy conserving fuel.”
The engine stopped.
The sudden silence was becoming familiar too.
Thomas made a note in the margin of the map.
“Deputy should be getting close.”
“How close?”
“Fifteen minutes was the last estimate.”
“That was six minutes ago.”
Thomas looked at the clock again.
“Then presumably closer.”
“You’re very comforting.”
“I’ve never advertised otherwise.”
Ellie was quiet.
Thomas put down his pencil.
Outside, the freezing rain had settled into a steady sound against the window. Not rain anymore, exactly. Something harder. A thousand tiny impacts against the glass.
The bridge below him was almost empty now.
One car crossed slowly from east to west.
Then nothing.
“Thomas?”
“Yes?”
“You said your daughter lives twelve miles away.”
He looked at the radio.
“I did.”
“Which direction?”
“What?”
“Which direction does she live?”
Thomas leaned back.
“Northwest.”
“So not across the river.”
“No.”
Another pause.
“What’s her name again?”
“Maggie.”
“Right.”
Thomas waited.
Ellie didn’t say anything else.
He picked up his pencil.
Put it down again.
“You’re remarkably interested in geography tonight.”
“I’ve had a geography-intensive evening.”
“Fair.”
Another silence.
Then Ellie said, “Is she married?”
Thomas looked toward the window.
“Yes.”
“Kids?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“Two.”
“So you’re a grandfather.”
“That generally follows.”
“How old?”
“Fourteen and eleven.”
“Boys? Girls?”
“One of each.”
“You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”
“Make what easy?”
“Conversation.”
“I thought we were doing very well.”
“We were when you were asking the questions.”
Thomas smiled.
“Occupational habit.”
“What are their names?”
He hesitated.
“Claire and Daniel.”
“You see them much?”
The smile left.
Thomas turned his pencil between his fingers.
“No.”
Ellie didn’t answer.
He knew the next question before she asked it.
“How long?”
Thomas looked at Anne’s photograph.
The other picture was still partly behind it. He reached over and moved Anne’s frame an inch to the side.
Maggie stood in the second photograph with Anne beside her.
It had been taken outside, perhaps at Easter. Maggie was laughing at something beyond the edge of the picture. Anne had one arm around her daughter and was looking at Thomas with an expression he knew very well.
He couldn’t remember what either of them had been laughing about.
“Thomas?”
“Three years.”
The radio hissed.
“Three years?”
“Yes.”
Ellie seemed to consider that.
“You haven’t seen your grandkids in three years?”
“I’ve seen them.”
“Oh.”
“From time to time.”
“How?”
“Bellweather isn’t Chicago. You run into people.”
He immediately disliked the sentence.
Ellie didn’t challenge it.
Thomas looked again at the photograph.
Daniel would have been eight.
Claire eleven.
He knew their ages now because he kept track.
He knew Claire played volleyball.
He knew Daniel had broken his wrist the previous summer.
Bellweather wasn’t Chicago.
Information traveled.
“That must be weird,” Ellie said.
“What?”
“Seeing them.”
Thomas moved the photograph back behind Anne’s.
“Yes.”
He picked up the local microphone.
“November Zero Charlie Mike, Kilo Zero Tango Bravo November. Any update?”
He released the switch.
Static.
Then Charlie answered.
“Kilo Zero Tango Bravo November, November Zero Charlie Mike. Deputy’s still moving. Mill Creek hill is slow going. He’s about seven miles out.”
“Copy. Road still passable?”
“So far.”
“Understood. She’s doing fine.”
“Good deal. I’ll let you know when he’s closer.”
“Appreciate it.”
Thomas set down the microphone.
“Seven miles,” he told Ellie.
“I heard.”
“Good.”
“You changed the subject.”
Thomas looked at the radio.
“I obtained an operational update.”
“You changed the subject operationally.”
“That isn’t a thing.”
“It is now.”
Thomas reached for his coffee.
It had gone completely cold.
He drank it anyway.
“What would you like to know?”
The question came out more sharply than he intended.
Ellie heard it.
“Nothing.”
Thomas stared into the mug.
“Ellie.”
“No, really. It’s none of my business.”
He set the mug down.
“You asked a perfectly reasonable question.”
“I asked about your grandkids.”
“Yes.”
“And then I kept asking.”
“Yes.”
“That’s usually how conversation works.”
“So I’ve heard.”
There was a small pause.
“Sorry,” she said.
“Don’t be.”
Thomas turned toward the window.
A few more lights had gone out across the river. There were gaps now where he knew houses stood.
“You’ve been stuck in a ditch for most of the evening,” he said. “You’re entitled to some entertainment.”
“Your family is entertainment?”
“Apparently not very good entertainment.”
“That depends on what happens next.”
Thomas almost laughed.
Almost.
“What happened?” Ellie asked.
There it was.
Thomas didn’t need to ask what she meant.
He had an answer.
He’d had one for three years.
“She stopped calling.”
Ellie waited.
Thomas expected another question.
None came.
He looked at the radio.
“That isn’t complicated.”
“Okay.”
“She stopped calling.”
“I heard you.”
Something about the absence of argument irritated him more than an argument would have.
Thomas shifted in his chair.
“After Anne died, Maggie was around constantly.”
“Anne was your wife?”
“Yes.”
“The picture?”
Thomas looked at it.
“Yes.”
“How long ago?”
“Five years.”
“Oh.”
Ellie’s voice changed.
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
He waited for the familiar awkwardness that often followed that exchange.
It didn’t come.
Maybe radio made some things easier.
“She was sick?”
“Not for very long.”
Thomas looked at Anne’s empty chair.
“Long enough to know. Not long enough to get used to knowing.”
He hadn’t intended to say that.
Ellie said nothing.
Thomas moved on before she could.
“Afterward, Maggie decided I couldn’t be left unsupervised.”
“Unsupervised?”
“She came by every day.”
“That doesn’t sound terrible.”
“It wasn’t every day at first. Then it was.”
Thomas leaned forward.
“She brought food.”
“Still not terrible.”
“I know how to cook.”
“I believe you.”
“She asked whether I’d eaten.”
“That seems—”
“I had.”
“Okay.”
“She checked the refrigerator.”
Ellie paused.
“Ah.”
“Exactly.”
Thomas felt vindicated.
“She’d come over and start doing things. Laundry. Dishes. Sorting mail. She made appointments.”
“For you?”
“Yes.”
“Without asking?”
“Sometimes.”
“Oh.”
“She called the doctor’s office once because I cancelled an appointment.”
“Why did you cancel it?”
“That is beside the point.”
Ellie laughed.
Thomas frowned.
“It is.”
“Why did you cancel it?”
“I had something else to do.”
“What?”
“I don’t remember.”
Ellie laughed again.
“This isn’t helping your case.”
“I wasn’t aware I was presenting one.”
“You kind of are.”
Thomas looked at the radio.
“She changed the batteries in my smoke detectors.”
“That monster.”
“I had already changed them.”
“Oh.”
“Two weeks earlier.”
“Okay, that’s annoying.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“And she kept asking whether I was driving.”
“Were you?”
“Obviously.”
“In the ice?”
Thomas looked at the window.
“That is unrelated.”
“I’m just checking.”
Thomas smiled despite himself.
“She wasn’t trying to be difficult,” he said.
The words surprised him.
He looked at Anne’s chair.
“No,” he added. “That’s not fair.”
“What isn’t?”
“Saying it that way.”
He rubbed a thumb along the edge of the coffee mug.
“She was trying to help.”
Ellie waited.
Thomas continued.
“She just didn’t understand that I didn’t need all the help she thought I did.”
“That makes sense.”
“I was seventy, not ninety.”
“Sixty-seven.”
“What?”
“If you’re seventy-two now and this was five years ago.”
Thomas frowned.
“Are you checking my math?”
“I’ve been trapped in a ditch for an hour. I have time.”
“Sixty-seven, then.”
“You were barely trained.”
Thomas stared at the radio.
Then he laughed.
It escaped before he could prevent it.
“Very funny.”
“I’ve been practicing.”
Thomas shook his head.
For a few seconds the room felt lighter.
Then Ellie’s voice came again.
“Did you tell her?”
“Tell her what?”
“That you didn’t need all that.”
“Of course.”
“How?”
Thomas opened his mouth.
Closed it.
“Directly.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I told her to stop fussing over me.”
“Fussing.”
“Yes.”
“Did you use that word?”
“Probably.”
“Hmm.”
“What does ‘hmm’ mean?”
“Nothing.”
“It means something.”
“It means I’m thinking about how I’d react if my dad told me I was fussing.”
“You’re not Maggie.”
“No.”
Thomas waited.
Ellie said, “Did she stop?”
“For a while.”
“And then?”
“She started again.”
“Why?”
“Because she worried.”
He heard himself say it.
Neither of them spoke.
Thomas looked down at the pencil in his hand.
He rolled it once beneath his palm.
“Anyway,” he said.
But there was no obvious way to continue.
The ice clicked against the window.
Ellie finally said, “My dad calls me when it snows.”
Thomas smiled faintly.
“What does he say?”
“Usually something like, ‘You know it’s snowing, right?’”
“Useful.”
“Every time.”
“Perhaps he thinks you don’t have windows.”
“I’ve suggested that.”
“Did it help?”
“No.”
“Then he and I may indeed have things in common.”
Ellie laughed.
Thomas looked at the photograph of Maggie and Anne.
Maggie’s hair was longer then.
He remembered Anne standing in the kitchen once while Maggie reorganized something in the pantry.
He couldn’t remember what.
He remembered being irritated.
He remembered Anne laughing.
Not at Maggie.
At him.
“What?” he had asked.
“Nothing,” Anne had said.
It had not meant nothing.
Thomas straightened the photograph.
“What happened after that?” Ellie asked.
“After what?”
“After Maggie kept helping.”
Thomas leaned back.
“Nothing happened.”
“That can’t be right.”
“It is.”
“No big fight?”
“Eventually.”
“About what?”
Thomas thought.
There had been an argument.
He could remember where he’d stood.
Kitchen.
Maggie near the sink.
He could remember her coat still being on.
He could remember Anne’s blue casserole dish sitting on the counter.
He could remember being furious.
The subject itself was less cooperative.
“I don’t remember exactly.”
“Really?”
“It wasn’t important.”
“It was important enough not to talk for three years.”
Thomas looked at the radio.
Ellie immediately retreated.
“Sorry.”
“No.”
Thomas rubbed his forehead.
“No. You’re right.”
He tried to reconstruct it.
“She wanted me to come to dinner.”
“At her house?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t want to?”
“I had something planned.”
“What?”
Thomas gave her a look she couldn’t see.
“I don’t remember.”
“Thomas.”
“It may not have been that dinner.”
Ellie laughed softly.
“Okay.”
“There were several.”
“Several fights?”
“Several dinners.”
“That you didn’t go to.”
“Some of them.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t always feel like being around people.”
Ellie was silent.
Thomas added, “That doesn’t mean I was lonely.”
“I didn’t say it did.”
“I know.”
The answer came too quickly.
He looked toward Anne’s empty chair.
The blue cushion had a worn place near the front edge.
Anne used to sit there with a book while Thomas operated.
Sometimes she read.
Sometimes she listened.
Sometimes Thomas would finish a contact and discover she had fallen asleep.
He had complained once that her chair squeaked whenever she moved.
She had told him the radio made considerably more noise than the chair.
He had fixed the chair.
Thomas looked away.
“Maggie thought I should get out more,” he said.
“Did you?”
“I got out.”
“Where?”
“Here and there.”
“That sounds suspicious.”
“I went to the hardware store.”
Ellie laughed.
“That doesn’t count.”
“Why not?”
“Because you probably needed something.”
“That’s generally why stores exist.”
“Did you go anywhere with people?”
“The hardware store has people.”
“Thomas.”
“Church.”
“Okay.”
“Radio club.”
“Better.”
“I was functioning perfectly well.”
He heard the defensiveness in his own voice.
Ellie did too.
“I believe you.”
Thomas stopped.
She said it without irony.
That made it worse somehow.
“I do,” Ellie said. “You seem pretty functional from here.”
“Thank you.”
“You found me.”
“That was mostly geography.”
“You got the sheriff looking for me.”
“Charlie did that.”
“You made me check the exhaust.”
“That was common sense.”
“You found the blankets.”
“Your father found the blankets. Years ago, apparently.”
“You know what I mean.”
Thomas didn’t answer.
Ellie continued more quietly.
“Maybe she wasn’t worried because you couldn’t take care of yourself.”
Thomas looked at the radio.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
She hesitated.
“Maybe she was just worried.”
Thomas’s first instinct was to explain why that wasn’t the point.
He could have done it easily.
He’d been doing it for years.
Instead he looked at the photograph.
Maggie beside Anne.
Both laughing.
“She’d lost her mother,” Ellie said.
Thomas’s eyes stayed on the picture.
“Yes.”
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No.”
“I don’t know anything about it.”
“No.”
Ellie went quiet.
Thomas could hear the faint rush of wind around her truck.
He picked up his coffee, remembered it was cold, and put it down again.
“She’d lost her mother,” he said.
The sentence sounded different in his voice.
Not new.
Just somehow less familiar.
Thomas stood and went to the window.
Bellweather was still there.
The courthouse clock glowed below.
The bridge was empty again.
Across the river, Ellie’s hillside had become a scattering of isolated lights separated by larger patches of darkness.
“How are your hands?” he asked.
“What?”
“Your hands.”
“Oh. Fine.”
“Shivering?”
“Not much.”
“Engine?”
“Off.”
“How long?”
“You’re the timer.”
Thomas checked the clock.
“Start it.”
The truck engine turned over.
Thomas waited until he heard the blower.
“Better?”
“Getting there.”
He remained at the window.
“Thomas?”
“Yes?”
“Did Maggie keep calling?”
He closed his eyes briefly.
“For a while.”
“How often?”
“I don’t know.”
“A lot?”
“Enough.”
“And you answered?”
“Yes.”
The word came automatically.
Thomas opened his eyes.
“Mostly.”
Ellie didn’t say anything.
Thomas returned to the desk.
“Not every time.”
“Okay.”
“Sometimes I didn’t want another conversation about whether I was eating properly.”
“That seems fair.”
“Or whether I needed somebody to come by.”
“Okay.”
“So I didn’t answer.”
“How often?”
Thomas frowned.
“I don’t know.”
“I’m not keeping score.”
“I know.”
He turned the pencil again.
“She’d leave messages.”
“Did you call back?”
“Sometimes.”
The word hung there.
Thomas added, “At first.”
Ellie was silent.
The local radio crackled.
Thomas reached for it with something close to relief.
“Kilo Zero Tango Bravo November, November Zero Charlie Mike.”
“Go ahead, Charlie.”
“Deputy is about four miles out now. He’s past the worst part of Mill Creek. Says visibility isn’t great, but he’s moving.”
“Copy. Four miles.”
“Does your motorist have hazard lights?”
Thomas switched radios.
“Ellie, hazards working?”
“Yes.”
“Turn them on.”
There was a pause.
“They’re on.”
Thomas switched back.
“Hazards on.”
“Good. Deputy will start watching for them when he gets closer.”
“Copy. Thanks, Charlie.”
Thomas returned to Ellie.
“Four miles.”
“That’s almost here.”
“Almost.”
Ellie exhaled.
Thomas heard relief in it.
He felt some himself.
He looked at the clock.
The evening had changed shape without his noticing.
An hour ago Ellie had been a weak signal underneath static.
Soon somebody would open her truck door.
Someone would have a face.
A uniform.
Headlights.
The radio would no longer be necessary.
Thomas sat down.
Ellie said, “So she stopped calling.”
He knew immediately who she meant.
“Yes.”
“Just like that?”
“No.”
Thomas looked at the desk.
“No. Not just like that.”
He didn’t
THE LIGHTS ACROSS THE RIVER
Part Four — The Lights Across the River
“I’m here.”
Thomas remained by the window.
Across the river, there was nothing he could distinguish as Ellie’s truck. Nothing that looked like a sheriff’s car. Just scattered lights on the hillside and, somewhere among them, a pair of headlights moving slowly along a road he could not see.
“They’re getting brighter,” Ellie said.
“Good.”
“I think they’re slowing down.”
“Stay in the truck.”
“I know.”
Thomas listened.
The radio carried the sound of Ellie’s heater and, beneath it, the faint uneven clicking of the hazard lights.
Then she said, “There.”
“What?”
“Blue lights.”
Thomas sat down.
“That’s him.”
“You don’t know that.”
“You’re right.”
A pause.
“It’s probably a very committed burglar.”
Ellie laughed.
Thomas hadn’t expected her to.
Neither, apparently, had she.
“Thomas.”
“Stay in the truck.”
“Yes, sir.”
He let that go.
The headlights came closer at Ellie’s end. Thomas could hear tires moving slowly over gravel or frozen ground.
Then an engine.
A door opened.
Ellie inhaled sharply.
Thomas leaned toward the microphone.
“Ellie?”
“I’m fine.”
A knock sounded through the radio.
Ellie startled anyway.
A man’s voice came faintly from somewhere outside the truck.
“Sheriff’s department.”
Ellie laughed once, mostly from relief.
“Okay.”
“Roll the window down a little,” Thomas said.
“I know how windows work.”
“Demonstrate.”
The window motor hummed.
Cold wind burst through the radio.
The deputy’s voice became clearer.
“You Ellie?”
“Yes.”
“You hurt anywhere?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
Thomas smiled.
Ellie said, “You’re the second person who’s asked me that.”
“Good. Means the first one had sense.”
Thomas sat back.
The deputy asked her a few more questions. Where she’d been headed. Whether she’d hit anything. Whether she could move her hands and feet normally.
Thomas heard Ellie answer.
Then footsteps moved away from the truck.
The deputy was examining the ditch.
Thomas switched to the local repeater.
“November Zero Charlie Mike, Kilo Zero Tango Bravo November.”
Charlie answered almost immediately.
“Go ahead, Thomas.”
“He’s there.”
“I heard.”
Thomas looked down at the desk.
“Yes.”
Charlie was quiet for half a second.
“Good work.”
“Good relay.”
“Take the compliment.”
“I’ll consider it.”
Charlie chuckled.
“Deputy says she’s fine. Truck’s not going anywhere tonight, but he’s taking her in.”
Thomas closed his eyes.
Only then did he notice how tightly his left hand had been gripping the edge of the desk.
He loosened it.
His fingers hurt.
“Copy,” he said.
His hand moved almost without thought.
Forehead.
Chest.
Then he opened his eyes again.
“Thanks, Charlie.”
“Anytime.”
The repeater fell quiet.
Thomas switched back.
Ellie was talking to the deputy.
“—yes, my father’s.”
A pause.
“No, he doesn’t know.”
Another pause.
“I know.”
Thomas smiled.
Even through the radio he could hear the deputy’s reaction.
Ellie returned to him.
“You still there?”
“Yes.”
“He says I’m riding with him.”
“Good.”
“And apparently the truck is spending the night.”
“The truck has made several poor decisions.”
“I was driving.”
“I was being diplomatic.”
The deputy said something in the background.
“What?” Thomas asked.
“He said I should take the blankets.”
“Take the blankets.”
“I was going to.”
“And the gloves.”
There was a pause.
“I don’t have gloves.”
“I am aware.”
“I’ll buy some.”
Thomas nodded.
“That would represent significant progress.”
“You’re still bossy.”
“You’re still in a ditch.”
“Not for much longer.”
That stopped him.
Neither spoke for a moment.
Thomas looked around the room.
The map was still open on the desk.
His pencil lay diagonally across County Road 68.
The coffee had been cold for an hour.
The clock continued its indifferent movement through UTC.
On the wall behind the radio were hundreds of cards from people Thomas had never met.
Ellie said, “Thomas?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“No.”
Thomas waited.
“Thank you for staying.”
He looked toward the window.
“I wasn’t going anywhere.”
“I know.”
Something in the way she said it made him look back at the radio.
The deputy spoke again.
Ellie answered him.
Then she returned.
“I have to go.”
“Yes.”
“I guess this is it.”
“It would appear so.”
“Very emotional.”
“I was saving the good material.”
She laughed.
Thomas did too.
Then Ellie said, “I’m going to call my dad.”
“Good.”
“Even though he’s still wrong.”
“Of course.”
“I mean it.”
“So do I.”
The deputy’s vehicle idled outside her truck.
Thomas could hear the wind whenever Ellie’s door seal shifted.
“Thomas?”
“Yes?”
“Who’s waiting for you?”
He didn’t answer.
His eyes moved around the room.
The old radio.
The newer one beside it.
Maps.
Logbooks.
QSL cards.
Anne’s photograph.
Her chair.
Maggie’s photograph partly hidden behind it.
His phone beside the map.
The question was simple enough.
“Nobody.”
Silence.
Then Ellie said:
“Are you sure?”
Thomas looked at the phone.
He said nothing.
Ellie did not ask again.
After a moment, she said, “Good night, Thomas.”
“Good night, Ellie.”
The radio clicked.
Static filled the room.
Thomas waited.
For a few seconds he expected her voice to return.
It didn’t.
He sat listening anyway.
The freezing rain continued against the window.
The clock ticked.
Somewhere on the band, another station called someone Thomas couldn’t quite hear.
He turned the volume down.
The room seemed larger.
Not emptier exactly.
Just larger.
Thomas looked through the window.
Across the river, the scattered lights remained.
He picked up his phone.
Maggie’s name was still on the screen.
He opened the contact.
Her number appeared beneath the old photograph.
Thomas rested his thumb over it.
He could call.
She would either answer or she wouldn’t.
If she answered, he could stay here.
At the desk.
In the chair.
With a radio and a window between himself and everything beyond the house.
His thumb remained over the number.
Then he locked the phone.
Thomas set it on the desk.
He looked at Anne’s chair.
Not for long.
Then he reached over and switched off the radio.
The sudden quiet surprised him.
The equipment had been humming so long he’d stopped hearing it.
Thomas pushed back his chair.
He stood.
Downstairs, he found his winter coat in the hall closet.
Boots.
Gloves.
Keys.
He checked the weather through the front window before opening the door.
The freezing rain had eased.
Not stopped.
But eased.
The road below the house shone beneath the streetlamp.
Thomas opened the door.
Cold air moved into the hallway.
He stepped outside and locked the door behind him.
The driveway was slick enough that he took his time.
At seventy-two, he had learned that falling in one’s own driveway was an undignified way to become interesting.
He reached the car without incident.
The engine started on the second turn.
Thomas sat for a moment while the windshield began to clear.
The radio came on automatically.
A man’s voice was giving a signal report to someone in Oklahoma.
Thomas listened for perhaps three seconds.
Then he turned it off.
He backed carefully out of the driveway.
Bellweather was nearly empty.
The tires whispered over wet pavement and occasionally crunched through thin patches of ice.
He took the hill slowly.
At Main Street the traffic light changed for no one.
Thomas waited for green anyway.
The courthouse stood lit against the low clouds.
A county truck moved through the intersection ahead of him, salt rattling behind it.
Thomas followed at a reasonable distance.
The clock on the dashboard said 9:31.
He turned north.
Twelve miles.
Thomas knew the route well.
He had taken it hundreds of times before there had been any reason to count.
Past the hardware store.
Past the parish church.
Past the grocery store.
Then out beyond the older part of town where houses gave way to larger lots and dark fields.
The wipers moved steadily.
Left.
Right.
Left.
Right.
The heater pushed warm air against his hands.
He passed a road he had once taken every Sunday.
Then another.
There was no moment when the journey became dramatic.
That was perhaps the most irritating part of it.
The road simply continued.
Three miles.
Five.
Seven.
At one point Thomas glanced at the trip display.
He had already driven farther that week to buy furnace filters.
He turned onto the county highway.
The road was better here. A plow had been through recently.
A few houses stood back from the road, their windows glowing yellow against the black fields.
At ten miles Thomas nearly turned around.
There was no specific reason.
No patch of ice.
No warning light.
He simply saw an intersection where he could turn left and loop back toward Bellweather.
His foot eased off the accelerator.
The intersection approached.
Thomas drove through it.
Two miles later he turned into Maggie’s neighborhood.
The houses were newer than his.
Smaller lots.
Attached garages.
Porch lights.
Christmas wreaths.
A few strings of white lights along gutters, though the ice had pulled one strand loose from a house at the corner.
Thomas slowed.
He knew Maggie’s house immediately.
Of course he did.
A basketball hoop stood beside the driveway.
There were two cars parked outside.
A light burned in the front room.
Another upstairs.
The porch light was off.
Thomas pulled to the curb.
He turned off the engine.
Then he sat.
The windshield wipers stopped halfway through a sweep.
Without the heater and engine, the car became very quiet.
Thomas looked at the house.
Nothing moved behind the windows.
He picked up his phone.
He could still call.
He could say he was outside.
That would at least give her warning.
He put the phone back in his pocket.
Five minutes passed.
Possibly three.
Possibly ten.
Thomas wasn’t watching the clock anymore.
At one point he put the key back into the ignition.
His hand rested there.
Then he removed it.
“Ridiculous,” he said.
The word fogged faintly against the cold windshield.
Thomas opened the door.
The sidewalk was slick.
He walked carefully past the basketball hoop and up the short path to the porch.
The family room curtains were partly open.
Thomas didn’t look directly inside.
He didn’t need to.
He could hear them.
Someone laughing.
A child’s voice complaining about something.
Dishes being put away.
A television low in another room.
Footsteps overhead.
Ordinary sounds.
Thomas stood at the door.
He lifted his hand.
Then lowered it.
From inside came another burst of laughter.
Thomas took one step backward.
Then another.
The porch light came on.
Thomas stopped.
The door opened.
Maggie stood there.
For a moment neither moved.
She looked older.
Of course she did.
Thomas wondered if she was thinking the same thing.
Her hair was shorter than in the photograph on his desk.
She wore a gray sweater and had one hand still on the door.
“Dad?”
Thomas had spoken to people thousands of miles away.
He had spent the evening talking a frightened stranger through an accident.
He had explained radio signals, exhaust pipes, road maps, ice, fathers and daughters.
Now he had nothing.
Maggie stepped a little farther into the doorway.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
“Did something happen?”
Thomas looked at the porch light above her.
“I could see your light.”
Maggie glanced upward.
Then back at him.
Thomas knew it made no sense.
He tried again.
“Thought I’d come over.”
For a long moment Maggie simply looked at him.
Her eyes moved to the ice on his shoulders.
Then toward the car at the curb.
Then back to his face.
Thomas put his hands into his coat pockets because he didn’t know what else to do with them.
From somewhere behind Maggie, a boy called:
“Mom?”
She didn’t turn.
“Just a minute.”
Another silence.
Then Maggie opened the door farther.
“Come in.”
Thomas looked past her.
Warm light.
The hallway.
A pair of shoes kicked against the wall.
A backpack on the floor.
Someone moving in the kitchen.
He stepped across the threshold.
Warm air touched his face.
Maggie closed the door behind him.
For a moment neither of them said anything.
They didn’t need to.
Not yet.
Outside, the freezing rain had almost stopped.
The river moved unseen through the darkness below Bellweather.
On one side, lights burned along the bluff.
On the other, they shone from scattered houses among the hills.
And somewhere beyond them, faint beneath the night, a radio voice called out across the distance.
The lights remained.
END
OUTRO
Sometimes a door opening is enough.
You’ve been listening to The Lights Across the River, a Chesterton Radio Original.
A story of Thomas Brennan, Ellie, and one winter night in Bellweather.
Thank you for spending part of your evening with us.
For more original stories, mysteries, classic radio, and conversation, visit ChestertonRadio.com.
And wherever you’re listening tonight—
may there be a light on somewhere for you.
This is Chesterton Radio.
Good stories. Good conversation. A little mystery. And the radio is always on.