16,484.2 km to belfast
The phone went at ten to six this morning, which is ten to eight at night there.
"Is that you, Noreen?"
She sounds exactly like Mam. I wasn't ready for that. I sat down on the floor of the hall with my back against the wall, because that's where the phone is and it's where my legs went.
We talked for twenty-two minutes. Mostly about the hand dryers at her leisure centre, which have been broken since Easter, and about Orla, who is doing her exams, and about the water. Nobody said anything about 1979. I think we both knew we weren't going to, this time.
She gave me her number before she hung up. 6,688 lengths, as of tonight. Her tonight. 167.2 km.
Then I went down and did my forty. I don't remember a single one of them.
Me 459.6. Together 626.8.