While I was waiting for her to come on, I looked at Nevada.
Suddenly, I was frightened, and when I'd been little, I'd always turned to Nevada when I was frightened.
"What if she won't come back?"
"She'll come back," he said confidently. He smiled. "She's still in love with you.
That's something else everybody knew but you."
Then she was on the phone, her voice worried and anxious.
"Jonas, are you all right?
Is there anything wrong?"
For a moment, I couldn't speak, then I found my voice.
"Monica," I said. "Don't go!"
"But I have to, Jonas.
I have to be on the job by the end of the week."
"Screw the job, I need you!" The line was silent, and for a moment, I thought she'd hung up. "Monica, are you there?"
I heard her breathe in the receiver.
"I’m still here, Jonas."
"I've been wrong all the time. I didn't know about Jo-Ann. Believe me." Again the silence. "Please, Monica!"
Now she was crying. I could hear her whispered voice in my ear.
"Oh, Jonas, I've never stopped loving you."
I looked up at Nevada. He smiled and went out, closing the door behind him.
I heard her sniffle, then her voice suddenly cleared and filled with the warm sound of love.
"When Jo-Ann was a little girl she always wanted a baby brother."
"Hurry home," I said, "I’ll do my best."
She laughed and there was a click as the line went dead in my hands.
I didn't put the phone down because I felt that as long as I held it, she was close to me.
I looked down at the photograph of my father on the desk.
"Well, old man," I said, asking his approval for the first time in my life, "did I do right?"
END.