Chapter Three

It was inevitable that after what seemed like hours, the phone rang. It was a subtle sound, a calm tone in the genre of musical buzzes. It gently blended into the background of boiling water, steaming pasta, smells of garlic bread, the acidity of the Merlot, and small feeling of apprehension that had begun to linger around Madeline like cheap perfume. It even gave her a similar pressure headache.

She barely heard it and did not recognize the sound at first. Expected, but not known in her consciousness, it caused her a momentary lapse of distortion. She could not quite think what the sound was and Rebecca seemed oblivious.

Then it dawned on her that is was indeed her telephone. Will one ever get used to this complicated facsimile of what was once a reliable concept? Perhaps it was Penny calling to update her on the Joan crisis? Hopefully the two girls had made up. She doubted Joan would do so easily, but Madeline suspected Penny might not have the energy for a prolonged provocation.

Picking up the phone,she looked at the number.It was a number because it did not say Penny. It was just numbers, numbers that she tried to quickly decode into the concept of one of her children. Perhaps they were calling for somewhere else. Maybe it was Rog.

"Hello," she asked making the greeting into a proper question. She fully expected to hear a familiar tone of voice and was about to exhale a long relief soliloquy. Her lips were poised, her tongue set.

She was not prepared for the voice on the other end.