The reception indicator on my cell phone remains zero. Every logical and illogical place in Tall's apartment failed to get even one bar. This apartment is a dead zone. I plop onto Tall's recliner, and my sneeze breaks the silence. Next time I have reception, I need to at least download some music. After five years in a house with two young boys, Mom, her husband Manu, and two dogs and three weeks with Kora's cries and an apartment full of people, the quiet is overwhelming.

I sniffle as the dust tickles my nose. Lack of tissues isn't a good reason to keep wiping my nose on my hand. The next best thing is toilet paper. I sit on the toilet lid, blowing my nose while flipping through the memes from Bazil's old messages when the phone slips out of my hands and falls on the tile floor of the bathroom. Please don't break, please don't break. I lean down, and a series of dings fill the air.

Of all the places in Tall's apartment, this is the first one with cell reception. I pick up the phone and see notifications crowd the top bar of the screen. But the reception indicator is at a zero. I lower the phone down towards the floor, and one, two, three bars appear and then disappear as I lift it back up. The only way to get reception is if I sit on the toilet with my arms down to the floor. Marvelous.

The selfies of Ben in Linda traversing New York fill my feed. I peer at his face in the hope of deciphering if he is happy. I want him to be happy, but no matter how much I tell myself that he doesn't have to be happy with me, that's what my heart desires. Ben with me, not with Linda. Hearts are hard to negotiate with.

Me: how're you feeling? did mike go back to the hotel for the night?

Me: what's the wifi password?

Me: having fun in new york?

Neither Angie, Tall, or Ben answer my texts, and it's too late to call Mom.

Only after my arms fall asleep and my fingers cramp up do I stop scouring the social media and checking on the latest answers I got for the apartment viewings lined up for tomorrow. As soon as I'm back in the recliner in the living room, I sneeze again. I'm the last person to get excited about cleaning, but dusting the apartment that stood empty for three weeks might cure the incessant sneezing. It's not like I have anything better to do.

Fifteen minutes into it, dusting proves as dull as I've always feared it would be. What wouldn't I do for a chance to talk to someone on the phone. My second preference is to watch a show or browse on my laptop, but there's surprisingly little I can do without the internet. I need that wifi password because there must be wifi here. Who doesn't have wifi? There is no computer or TV that I can see. Maybe his laptop is stored out of the way, and he wrote the wifi password somewhere where he can find.

My dusting abandoned, I search the shelves, the drawers in the living room and kitchen, rifle through the hallway closet, and move into the bedroom. Maybe people don't put laptops into bedroom closets, but a router might be there. The sliding door reveals rows of clothes from the last fifty years that smells like mothballs and stacks of old newspapers and magazines on the floor.

On the top shelf among winter gear and a collection of hats, there's a box that says 'wife' on it. Could that be wifi? Maybe that's where his router is. I stand up on my toes and reach for it, but it's too high up. Tall didn't get his nickname for nothing. According to Ben, Tall's childhood friends started calling him Tall because he was a head or two taller than them, and for the rest of his life, he was Patrick Killpatrick on paper but Tall Killpatrick at all other times.

I drag a chair from the kitchen and clamber up, pull the brown cardboard box off the shelf, and the unexpected weight of it makes me lose my balance. I half fall, half jump sideways off the wobbling chair, and the lid flies off the box. The contents have nothing to do with the internet.

The dapper guy in his early thirties wearing a pinstripe suit and skinny tie can't be anyone else but Tall. Over the years, he lost the luscious head of blond hair and gained an abundance of wrinkles, but the sly grin and mischievous eyes are unmistakably his. The woman next to him with short hair puffed up on top and cat-eye glasses stares with a smile full of love on the little boy between them. His blond hair combed over and bow-tie askew, he has Tall's big bright eyes, a matching smile, and a toy car in one hand.

This is not a router, a laptop, or anything to do with what I'm looking for. I put the box on my bed and pick up the heavy silver frame engraved with swirls and little flowers. How did this lovely couple end up with two twin beds in the bedroom? I turn the photo over, hoping for a date, but the back is plain with a hanging wire stretched across it and a corner of a paper sticking out from beneath the back panel.

No longer in charge of my hands, I watch them remove the back of the frame, but instead of the photo, a cut out folded piece of newspaper lies on top. The obituary confirms my worst fear. 'Ten-year-old Benjamin Kilpatrick was survived by his father, Patrick Kilpatrick, and his mother, Constance Kilpatrick'.

Bad idea. Such a bad idea. Why did I take the box off the shelf? I give the box a side-eye. I should stop. I better stop. But I already took it down. I already know about his son. The pretense of looking for a wifi password abandoned, I slide the box closer to me and take the next thing—a package wrapped in a cloth—out. That's what made it so heavy.

The soft felt falls away and reveals an intricate inlaid wooden jewelry box. There is no lock, so I open the lid and see rings, earrings, bracelets, necklaces sorted and packed in various size compartments, and I have no idea if this is costume jewelry or the real deal. I put it aside and reach for the last item in the cardboard box. It's a leather-bound photo album.

The pages are yellow with dates, and locations appear under each one: a round-cheeked baby, a toddler on a wooden horse, a young boy ready for his first day of school. The last filled out page in the middle of the album shows an older version of the boy on Tall's lap reading a book: 'Benny, ten years old, April 1965." Benny. Ben. Tall's son's name was Ben.

The box with its contents is back on its shelf. Tall never has to learn that I found out about it, but a mix of emotions churning inside isn't going to let this go. I want the full story. I need to hug Tall.

***

Sunday morning, I open my eyes to the bright sun streaming through the windows. The quiet greets me. When was the last time I spent so much time away from screens? I pee and bend down to the magic spot on the floor that gets me connected to the outside world. Today, instead of a meme, Bazil sent me photos from his trip to the beach with his dad and some of his schoolmates. Mom sent a video of Chris, the youngest in the family, scoring a goal during his soccer practice. Their fearless smiling faces remind me so much of Benny. Does Ben know about his namesake? As if we are connected by an invisible mental thread, Ben's text message pops up on the screen.

Ben: New York was fine. You must make Tall walk. He doesn't want to listen to me.

Me: i'll do my best

Ben: Promise me that you'll make him.

***

The stop by 'Maison Parisienne' for fresh Pain au Chocolat for breakfast and eclairs for Tall extends my drive to Tall's rehab facility but riding Mike's bike allows me to maneuver through the traffic jams. The bike, named Beauty by Mike's brother Nicky when he was younger, is bigger than what I'm used to riding in France, but Mike's almost twice my size, so it makes sense. I store the desserts in the compartment in the back and put the helmet on.

When I come in, Tall's in bed flipping through the channels on the TV in front of him. For a guy who owns no TV this is getting suspicious.

"I need your wifi password." I start with the most important thing.

"Who taught you manners? A 'good morning' would be nice."

"Good morning."

"Good morning to you too. You'll have to ask the administrator here." He waves in the direction of the door I came in through.

"I should get the one from them too. By the looks of things, I'll be spending lots more time here with you. But I need the one from your apartment as well."

"Haven't I told you I don't have any?" He tears his eyes away from the screen and gives me a quizzical look.

"No wifi? Do you have an ethernet cable?"

"No wifi, no cable, no tv, no computer. I'm old school. Books and people are all I need."

"You aren't serious, are you?" He can't be serious.

"Dear girl, technology isn't for me. Ben was the one who got me the smartphone. Until then, I used to rely on my landline."

"The ancient receiver on the wall works?"

"And I have that number memorized. The cell phone's on the other hand..."

How is this even possible? What am I supposed to do every evening?

"You might've mentioned it when you offered me to stay at your place." I toss my helmet on one of the chairs in the room.

"Would you have not moved then?"

"No, but I now I'll need to get something better than this pay-as-you-go crappy phone, something that has reception at your place."

"Now that we've solved your modern-day problems, I'm ready for my eclairs." He stretches his hand towards the plastic clamshell in my hand.

"Have you walked today?"

"No."

"I have two eclairs for you, but only after you walk."

"Not you too. I spent an hour on the phone with Mr. Know-it-all, and I didn't expect you to join the ranks of his supporters."

I put the dessert on the chest of drawers under the TV and get the personal care assistant in because no matter what I've promised Ben, I'm too scared Tall will fall again and that with my rotten luck, I'll do more damage than good. The assistant brings in a walker and instructs Tall how to sit up on the bed, get off it, and use the support.

Me: tall's walking.

Ben: I need proof he didn't sweet talk you into lying to me.

"Smile." I snap a series of photos of grouchy Tall and send them to Ben.

Me: proof enough?

Dots dance on the screen, disappear, and his reply comes through.

Ben: Another reason I'm grateful you are back.

My heart tingles.

"What are you smiling about? Start reading already. I'm not doing this for nothing."

I open up "Les Miserables" I grabbed from his bedside table and continue from where we stopped, but words are blurring in front of my eyes, and I can't follow the story because watching Tall taking careful steps and pushing the walker forward, I imagine the seventeen-year-old Ben by his side giving Tall a reason to get better, a reason to want to get better.

The trip a couple of doors down the hallway and back drains Tall. And I get his grudging vow that this was the first of many walks. Eating one of the eclairs brings back Tall's cheeky mood, and brightness returns to his eyes. The same brightness that shone from his and Benny's eyes on that photo. I look at Tall, but Benny is all I can think about. 

Tall is one of my favorite characters. I know so many amazing octogenarians that I had to have one in my story. What are your feelings about Tall at this point?

This chapter was a tough one to write because I needed to put certain information in that will be of importance later, yet make sure that even though Ben and Am are apart, they are still thinking about each other. A lot. Did this come through?

NaNoWriMo: Day 20 35, 856 Last two days were barely above 1000K as I wrote and re-wrote this chapter multiple times. Huge shoutout to @dlcroisette for talking me off the ledge and helping me make this chapter into something coherent. 

Ten more days of daily writing. 14,144 words left to go. That's 6-7 more chapters. 

Your comments and votes help me, they really do help me get through the mental barriers of NaNoWriMo and push me to keep going. I'm grateful for your support.