Nolan's telephone rang past the fourth ring. I counted two more before his recorded voice answered, too brisk and cheerful for the way I had been holding my breath. He and his household were not available, it said. Leave a message after the tone. I had always disliked speaking to a machine that could not interrupt me.
"Nolan, it's Mother." I stopped, hearing how small that sounded. He knew who Mother was. He needed facts. I unfolded the receipt with one hand and read from the back. "I left Harvey's safely. I'm at the neighboring place I'm about to give you. Don't come to the closed entrance."
I gave the location twice. Then I asked him to telephone Tessa, tell her I was safe, and find out where she was. I said I would call him again, because I was using a public telephone and could not promise to receive a call. At the end I almost added, Tell her not to be angry. Instead I said, "Please stay near your phone when you get this."
The receiver clicked into place. There was no way to ask the recording whether it had heard me clearly, whether the tape had room, whether Nolan would come home before Tessa set out. I checked the coin return and stepped away so the next person could use the phone.
Bram looked up when I returned. "Reach him?"
"The machine."
"You left where you are?"
"Twice." I sat down. "I sounded like a woman who couldn't remember what she'd just said."
"Or a woman making sure somebody got an address right."
I wanted to say the distinction would not matter to Nolan. But my son had a scheduler's patience with repeated information, and impatience with missing information. He would rather have the address twice than hear a story about the waitress while wondering where I was.
Bram set a few coins on his knee. "I've got change if you need another call."
"I have money."
"I didn't say you didn't." He covered the coins with his hand, not offended, which made my answer sound worse. I looked away toward a woman settling an elderly man into a chair and wished somebody nearby would require my assistance.
No one did. I took my wallet out and counted what I had available. There was cash for meals and a room if I had to find one, though not enough to treat either casually. Much of the money I kept thinking of as mine was still a house waiting for signatures. The coin purse held less than the wallet suggested.
I had used money to make the afternoon feel manageable: the first call, the coffee, the assumption that if one plan failed I could purchase the next. Public telephones did not care that a house would close on Friday. Neither would a room clerk be paid by my assurance that a wire would clear.
"I can change a bill," I said, more to myself than Bram.
"Probably."
"I don't need to keep ringing if he isn't there."
"Probably not."
His agreement irritated me until I realized he was leaving the decision where it belonged. He had not told me to sit still, or promised that Nolan would return soon. I could not accuse him of taking charge simply because I had run out of sensible orders to give.
I wrote the time of the call on the back of the receipt. Below it I wrote that I had left a message. It was a poor substitute for knowing where Tessa was, but it kept the call from dissolving into the general feeling that nothing had happened.
For several minutes I watched the telephone alcove. Every person who approached it seemed to possess an advantage I lacked: a number, an answer, somebody expecting them. That was nonsense. I had no idea whom they were calling or what they heard. I was making their ordinary movements into evidence against myself.
Bram offered to get water while he stretched his legs. I accepted water, which cost neither of us anything, and stayed with the chairs. When he returned, I put the coin purse away without pretending it was full. My message had a route now, through Nolan to Tessa. It was only a route. No one had yet traveled it.