My arm obeyed me now; the numbness was letting go.

I scrolled to a number I had not dialed in almost six years, since the winter I’d buried my father and walked away from everything attached to him, and I pressed it before I could talk myself into waiting until morning.

Three rings.

Then a deep, unhurried voice, older than I remembered it.

“Hello?”

“Uncle Andrew,” I said.

My voice came out cracked, barely mine.

The silence on the line had a shape to it. “…Meredith?”