Page 21 of His Sound
“Let’s hope so.” I shrug. “I can fix most things. Once you know the basics, you can figure out how to take almost anything apart.”
“Well I hope you fix it too,” she replies. “Your sister sounds a little scary.”
“Maybe,” I agree, “but mostly she’s just annoying, like all my sisters are.”
“How many do you have?”
“Four, plus a brother, and before you ask, yes, I’m the baby.” I offer up a quick recap of all my siblings, which people usually ask for after they find out I have so many. “Geneviève, the one I was talking to, works at a big law firm here in the city. She and her twin, Carol, live in Montreal. The other two sisters and my brother are still back in Trois-Rivières, where we grew up. Geneviève is probably the most financially successful, but they’re all working these fancy-ass jobs in law, business, or politics. Then there is me.”
Molly pauses just before we get to an intersection.
“You’re in Sherbrooke Station,” she says, like it’s supposed to be some kind of revelation.
“I am...” I prompt her. I don’t know where she’s going with this.
“I mean...” She waves her arms around, getting flustered again, but not willing to give up on making her point. “The way you said, ‘Then there is me,’ like...I mean, it’s like what you said to me earlier. You don’t have to be somebody else.”
My words sent a jolt through me when she throws them back my way. We stare at each other in the orange glow from a nearby streetlight, and this time, it’s me who looks away first.
“My place is just across the street,” she says softly. “Thanks for walking me back.”
There was something else I wanted to say. There were lots of things I wanted to say, but I’m too stunned, too struck by her statement to remember any of them before she’s slipping away. I watch her cross the road, and only manage to return her little wave just as she’s opening the door to her building’s lobby.
Tabarnak, I think, as I watch it swing shut.I forgot to tell her she has my ball.
