At four, Nia was still walking the block outside the café. She had not gone in. Leonie stood under the awning across the street, where Nia could see her if she looked up. She had agreed to show Nia the place and leave her to the meeting. Neither of them had expected the first conversation to begin by phone.
Inez called Leonie. Miriam was nearby but could not yet make herself enter the café. She wanted to ask Nia whether they could speak for a few minutes before either came to the table. Leonie looked across the street. Nia had stopped by the public notice board, reading nothing on it.
“I will ask her if she wants the call,” Leonie told Inez. “I won't tell her why Miriam is hesitating unless Miriam says it to her.”
“That is her reason,” Inez said. “She is frightened.”
Leonie crossed at the light and repeated the request. Nia's face tightened. “She knows where I am?”
“She knows you're at the café. Inez has not told her which side of the street.”
“I'll take the call. I don't want you answering for me.”
Leonie connected them and handed Nia the phone. Nia put it to her ear and said, “Miriam?” Then she looked at Leonie. “Please go inside. Not close to the window.”
Leonie went into the café and chose a table behind a tall shelf. She could see the door but not Nia. A server asked if she wanted coffee; she ordered it because she could not remain there with an empty table. The cup came. She did not drink. It was the first time in years she had been close to Miriam's voice and unable to hear it. She had arranged calls through Inez, interpreted fragments, and imagined herself useful. Now Nia and Miriam had a direct line and Leonie had no role inside it.
After twenty minutes Nia came through the front door alone. She sat across from Leonie without asking, placed the phone on the table, and looked at the coffee.
Nia's coat hung open. She folded a napkin beneath the damp phone case and moved it twice before speaking.
“She asked if I'd eaten,” Nia said. “I nearly hung up.”
“What stopped you?”
“She said it like she was still allowed to check. I wanted to tell her I've fed myself for eight years. Then I remembered wanting her to ask me that when I was sixteen.” Nia moved the phone off the napkin and back again. “I didn't know which answer belonged to the person on the call.”
Leonie slid the untouched coffee aside, giving Nia room for the phone. “What did you say?”
“That I wasn't calling to be checked on. Then she said she used to leave crackers in the drawer beside my bed because I would forget dinner when I was drawing. I had forgotten the crackers.” Nia rubbed her sleeve over her eyes, irritated by the movement. “She wrote that I drew buildings. On the phone she remembered where I sat while I drew them. I don't know what I'm supposed to do with that.”
“Did you tell her you remembered?”
“I didn't tell Miriam that. I asked whether she remembered what I was drawing. She said houses with rooms nobody could get out of. I told her they had doors; I just never drew the back wall. She laughed. Then she stopped laughing because she thought I was angry.” Nia put both hands flat on the table. “I was. I was also glad she knew the drawings. I couldn't explain both before she started apologizing.”
Leonie reached for the coffee. It was cold. She left it where it was.
“I asked whether she sent letters,” Nia said. “She asked which ones I had. When I told her the years, she went quiet. Then she started to explain why she didn't write an address. I asked her whether she hoped I'd answer. She said she did. After I turned eighteen, she waited longer between letters. She moved past that as if it were a weather report.”
Nia opened the phone to the call time, then locked it again. “I said I had three from his closet and more might exist. She asked whether Cal had read them. I don't know. I wanted to ask why she sent them to a house where he could get the mail, but the way she said his name made me hold back. That was the first thing I chose not to say to her.”
“You can ask it later,” Leonie said.
“I know. It would have changed the whole call. I was still trying to hear her voice without making every sentence a trial.”
Nia pulled the cup's paper sleeve around with one finger. It came off in a spiral. Leonie let her work at it.
“I asked if she ever came back to Bellhaven to see me,” Nia said. “She said no. She was afraid Cal would find her. She was afraid I'd ask why she didn't take me. I told her I had both questions ready. She said she would answer them when we met.”
“Did she say when?”
“She said she was on a bench near the café. I went to the window and saw two women waiting at the bus stop. I didn't know if one was her. I said I could meet at another place tomorrow. She thought I was asking her to leave this one, and I had to say I hadn't decided anything yet.”
Nia pulled the napkin out from under the phone. It tore along its fold. “We spent a minute explaining a meeting neither of us had agreed to. Then she asked if I wanted her to come through the door. I could have said yes. I didn't.”
“And you said?”
“I asked whether she meant today. She said if I wanted. I could hear how frightened she was of my answer. I told her I wasn't coming in today.” Nia set the torn sleeve on the table. “She said yes so fast. For one second she sounded relieved, and then she apologized for sounding relieved. I couldn't bear the apology either.”
The server came with the bill for Leonie's coffee. Nia waited while Leonie paid, looking at the door as if Miriam might enter because the call had ended. She picked up the phone and put it back down.
“I thought I'd know her voice,” she said. “Sometimes I did. Then she'd talk like a person meeting me for the first time. Both made me angry.”
“What part did you know?” Leonie asked.
“The way she said my name when she was trying not to hurry me. She used to do that when I couldn't answer a question at school. On the phone she did it after I asked about Bellhaven. I almost let it make me feel sixteen again.” Nia picked up the torn sleeve and folded one strip across another. “Then she asked where I work now. She hadn't heard me say print shop through Inez. I liked telling her. I hated that I liked it.”
“Did she ask what you make there?” Leonie asked.
“Yes. I told her about a poster we finished yesterday. I heard her smile before she asked if I still draw houses. I said sometimes. That was the easiest minute we had, and I kept waiting for it to end because we hadn't talked about why she left.” Nia glanced at the door. “I need somewhere neither of them will come through the door.”
“There's a library near the square.”
“I'll go there.” She handed the phone back.
“Do you want me to walk with you?” Leonie asked.
Nia looked at the coffee Leonie had not drunk. “I know the square. I want a place I found myself. You can stay here until I call.”
Leonie held the phone. “If she calls me?”
“Hear her. Don't bring me the explanation I should have had from her.”
Nia took the torn cup sleeve and put it in the empty sugar dish.
Leonie agreed. Nia stood, then hesitated beside the table. “I may ask you what she was like on the ferry another day. Today I want the woman I just heard to be the one I think about.”
She left by the side door. Leonie remained with the coffee she had not tasted.
Miriam called ten minutes later. Leonie stepped outside before answering. Miriam's voice was lower than Leonie remembered, but the pauses were familiar. “I didn't know she had letters,” Miriam said. “I wrote for years. Inez told me the first ones went through. When Nia was an adult and there was still nothing, I stopped. I couldn't keep writing to someone who might want me gone.”
“You knew you were using Cal's house as the address,” Leonie said.
“I had no other address for her. When she moved out, I didn't know where she'd gone. Inez offered to find her without leading Cal to me. I told her not to.”
Miriam waited through a sound of traffic at her end. “I thought if Nia wanted me, she'd look. Then I thought she might already have looked and stopped. Those were two different fears. I let them take turns until I had done nothing.”
“She asked you today whether you came back to Bellhaven.”
“I told her no. I wanted to say I passed through once and considered getting off the bus. I didn't. It would make a trip through town sound like an attempt to see her.”
Leonie leaned against the wall beside the café. She had not heard Miriam speak so plainly about avoiding her daughter. “You can tell her what happened on the bus if she asks. Don't offer it as proof you tried.”
“You sound like Ada.”
“Perhaps. She signed the old answer with me. I don't want another near-answer given to Nia because we think the full one will hurt.”
Miriam breathed out. “I was ready for her to be angry. I wasn't ready for her to remember a drawer in her bedroom and then ask why I never found a new address. I heard a daughter I know and one I don't.”
Leonie could have said Nia had been startled by the same split. She had promised not to translate Nia. “She can speak to you again,” she said. “Let her choose when.” Leonie looked at the café door. “She needs to hear when you stopped, and that you turned down Inez's offer. From you.”
“I tried to explain the years. She said she needed to go.” Miriam's voice hardened. “You told me eight years ago that getting to Inez's car would give me time. I believed you. Then time became a way to keep putting off the call I couldn't make.”
“I didn't make you stop looking for Nia.”
“No. You didn't. I did that myself.”
Traffic hissed past. Leonie pressed her back against the café wall. Miriam stayed on the line.
“I won't give Nia a gentler version of what you told me,” Leonie said. “She asked me not to interpret you. When she calls, you can tell her.”
Miriam did not answer at once. “Inez said Cal is here.”
“He traveled by road after Moss Point. Nia spoke with shore staff. Keep the meeting public when Nia wants it. Don't go to a private place he names.”
“I won't.”
Leonie ended the call and remained on the pavement with the phone in her hand. Through the café window she could see the cup she had not drunk, with Nia's torn paper sleeve in the sugar dish.