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The Gravity of What Has Gone (3)

I’d clung to the flat in Glasgow as long as I could, stealing car stereos to make rent. Even after the official eviction, it took three burly cops to drag me out stinking drunk and sobbing.

There was nowhere else to go but my parents’ house. Jason had loved to visit his grandparents, and we’d drilled their phone number into his little head. It was all I had to cling to. Even after my parents passed on, I kept the phone number and prayed that if my son came back, he’d come back here.

He had. And now I had to leave.

I called a friend of a friend who’d been buttonholing me at stupid office parties for years.

“Gil! How’s tricks? Ready to sell that house of yours? The market—”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“Yes. Sell it. I’ve already written out the paperwork. It’s yours now. Sell it and give the money to charity. I don’t care which. Something for kids. I’ll leave the key under the mat. Goodbye.”

I dropped the receiver into its cradle and clenched my fists. I wanted this to be over. Not yet.

I still had to call Janey.

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