Ray — Friday, November 20, 2026
His lawyer told him June had been found alive. He had heard it by then through the news he was allowed to receive, but he wanted the lawyer to say it. He asked where she was. Receiving care, she said; she didn't give him an address at which he could reach her.
“How is she?”
“I don't have a medical report to give you.”
“But alive.”
“Yes.”
He put his hands together on the table. They had spoken yesterday after he asked for counsel. Now there were pages to go over, the present charges, the statements he had already chosen to make. She asked him to read a part before he answered her question. He did. The words about the door were his own.
She had practical information from Ruth too. His wife wanted the household paperwork kept available and the next matters about property handled through the proper contacts. She wasn't taking responsibility for the pickup when police released it. There were things to settle about the home. Ray asked what Ruth had actually said. The lawyer gave him the message she had, without making it sound kinder.
“She's taking the job,” he said.
“All right.”
“I told her she should.”
The lawyer looked at him. “Is there something about the job I need to know?”
He shook his head. She returned to the papers. He wanted to tell her that Ruth could laugh at a bad room with a view of a restaurant, that she had once stood on a chair in his socks and made him laugh when he had been ready to complain. He opened his mouth, then closed it while she found the next page.
They went through what needed an answer today. He could ask the lawyer a question and receive a question back; he could say he didn't understand a page and have it explained. There were consequences he had been avoiding by thinking only of the next conversation with Lena. They did not become smaller when somebody explained them.
He asked whether the investigators had gone to any of the places he described. The lawyer would deal with the case information and proper contact. She did not promise him another interview with the same detective. Ray looked at the corner of the table where the papers didn't quite lie flat. He knew a junction she had not put on them. The lawyer asked whether he wanted to discuss further information with her. He said not now, then sat through the silence until she went to the next practical point.
Afterward he thought of June knowing she had been found. There would be people around her who could leave if she told them to, people whose hands she might permit near the foot. She could say his name to them. He was relieved enough to feel weak, and angry with the thought of her speaking. He asked to hear the news again before they finished.
Back among the ordinary movements of the place, he saw a man looking beneath a seat for something. A paper had slipped farther under, against the leg. Ray could reach it from his side. He bent, picked it up and passed it over without reading it.
“There.”
The man took it and sat in the place Ray had meant to use. He did not say thanks. Ray remained standing a moment, expecting him to shift. There were other seats. It was not that there was nowhere to go. He had been sitting there before, and the man had seen him.
He chose another one and sat too hard. The leg rocked against the floor. Across the room someone asked for the time and was answered by two voices giving different minutes. Ray looked at the clock. He could settle it if he raised his voice. He watched the second hand catch, move and catch again.