"I can't remember who brought me this," she tells me, "but it's very nice. Would you like some, Jimmy?"
"That'd be great," I say.
It's older now and a bit stale, the mud cake.
But the taste is perfect.
A few nights later, we're all on the porch of the shack, playing cards. I'm going strongly until a sudden silence slits through the game. A sound follows it, from inside.
"It's the phone," Audrey says.
There's something about it that doesn't sit right. An uneasy feeling glides over me.
"Well, are you getting it?" Marv asks.
I get up and step over the Doorman with great trepidation.
The ring calls me toward it.
I pick it up.
Quiet. All quiet.
"Hello?"
Again.
"Hello?"
The voice attempts to find the very core of me. It finds it and says four words.
"How's it going, Jimmy?"
Something breaks in me.
"What?" I ask. "What did you say?"
"You heard me."
The phone dies, and I'm alone.
I stagger back out to the porch.
"You lost," Marv informs me, but I barely hear him. I couldn't care less about the card game.
"You look shockin'," Ritchie tells me. "Sit down, lad."
I heed his advice and take my p
lace again in the game.
Audrey looks at me and asks whether I'm okay just by the expression on her face. I answer yes, and when she stays later, I nearly tell her about Milla and Jimmy. I come so close to asking what she thinks about it all, but I already know the answers. Her opinion can't change any of this, so I might as well face up to the fact that I have to go on. I've given Milla the companionship she's been needing, but it's time now to either move on to the next address or go back to Edgar Street. I can still visit her, of course, but it's time now.
It's time to move on.
That night, I go out walking with the Doorman, late. We go down to the cemetery and see my father and wander through the rest of the graves.
A flashlight hits us.