Chapter 148 Chapter 148

Chapter 148 Chapter 148
Sunday morning.

Five forty-seven.

The alarm not set.

I lay in the dark and thought about David Torres standing at the edge of a pool with his hands open toward the room.

Still.

Then I got up.

I made tea.

I sat on the floor.

The photographs beside me.

The notebook open to the twelve lines.

The fourth piece complete on the screen.

Held.

I read it once from the beginning.

All twelve lines.

The approach and the jump and the landing.

The remembering which was harder and more and better than the knowing.

The surface that was always there.

The held.

I closed the laptop.

I texted Priya.

I said: the fourth piece is ready. Sending this morning.

She said: I've been awake since six.

I said: you're always awake.

She said: not always. Specifically when something is ready.

I said: how do you know it was ready.

She said: you texted at five fifty-three. You only text before six when something is finished.

I said: you've been tracking my text timestamps.

She said: it's data.

I said: Priya.

She said: send the piece.

I sent it.

She responded in four minutes.

She said: I'm reading.

I waited.

Bria stirred behind me.

She said without opening her eyes: the fourth piece.

I said: yes.

She said: you sent it.

I said: yes.

She said: Priya.

I said: reading now.

She said: how long.

I said: twelve lines. Not long.

She said: the twelfth.

I said: the remembering.

She said: yes.

She said: that's the one.

I said: they're all the one.

She said: the twelfth is the one that contains all the others.

I said: yes.

She said: like the last line of the essay.

I said: yes.

She said: and Before First.

I said: yes.

She said: you always find the line that contains all the others.

I said: eventually.

She said: yes.

She rolled over.

The room did its Sunday morning thing.

Quiet. Unhurried. The specific quality of a day that hadn't committed to anything yet.

My phone buzzed.

Priya.

She said: the twelfth line.

I said: yes.

She said: the remembering is not the same as the knowing.

I said: yes.

She said: it's the piece that closes the series.

I said: series.

She said: yes. Series. Four pieces. One thing from four angles.

I said: they're essays.

She said: they're a series of essays.

I said: same argument as the trilogy conversation.

She said: and I'm giving you the same answer.

I said: it's not the same thing.

She said: it is for you.

I said: Hendricks will call it a series.

She said: I spoke to Hendricks this morning.

I said: you called Hendricks before six AM.

She said: she was already up. She said she'd been expecting the fourth piece since the dinner.

I said: how did she know there would be a fourth piece.

She said: she said and I'm quoting: the dinner was the twelfth line's room. I knew she'd walk out of it with the line. I've been waiting.

I said: she predicted the room.

She said: she's been doing this for eighteen years. She knows the rooms.

I said: and she said series.

She said: immediately.

I said: I expected nothing less.

She said: she also said the series needs a collective title.

I said: a collective title.

She said: for when all four pieces are published together. Which the anniversary magazine wants to do.

I said: the magazine wants to publish all four together.

She said: as a collected edition. The editor called me yesterday. After she read Held.

She said: she said and I'm quoting her: this is the most significant sports writing I've published in twenty years and I want all four pieces in one volume.

I said: one volume.

She said: yes.

I said: of essays.

She said: of a series.

I said: Priya.

She said: yes.

I said: what does Hendricks think the collective title should be.

She said: she said you'll know it.

I said: she said I'll know it.

She said: she said it's probably already somewhere in the four pieces.

I said: it's in the pieces.

She said: yes.

I said: I need to find it.

She said: you need to stop looking for it.

I said: that's the same advice for every line.

She said: because it's always right.

I said: yes.

She said: it'll come.

I said: I know.

She said: don't try.

I said: I won't.

She said: Zara.

I said: yes.

She said: the four pieces.

I said: yes.

She said: Sharp Edges and Before First and Held and the fourth.

I said: yes.

She said: they're the same story.

I said: yes.

She said: one story.

I said: yes.

She said: the ice.

I said: yes.

She said: and what it holds.

I said: yes.

She said: and what it held before anyone found it.

I said: yes.

She said: and what the remembering of that cost.

I said: yes.

She said: and what comes after the remembering.

I said: yes.

She said: one story.

I said: one story from four angles.

She said: yes.

She said: the collective title is in that.

I said: I know.

She said: stop looking.

I said: I'll stop looking.

She said: go to the rink.

I said: it's Sunday.

She said: yes.

I said: I don't have a session on Sundays.

She said: I know. Go anyway.

She hung up.