Chapter 6: Whispers on the Wire

Cal couldn't concentrate on his work. For three days since their argument over the fence, the sound of Lena's phone call had echoed in his head—the fear in her voice, the way she'd said "expensive treatments" like the words physically hurt. He found himself glancing toward her house more often than he cared to admit, catching glimpses of her in the garden or through her kitchen window.

The woman he was seeing didn't match the story he'd been telling himself for a decade.

He was in his workshop Thursday morning, supposedly focusing on the preliminary sketches for her shelving units, when the familiar creak of his back door made him look up. Through the window, he could see directly into Lena's garden now that the fence was gone. She was kneeling among what looked like rescued plants—wilted flowers in mismatched pots, their leaves brown at the edges but not quite dead.

Her green thumb had always been legendary. Even as a teenager, she could coax life back into plants that others would have thrown away. Watching her gentle hands work the soil around a drooping daisy, Cal felt an unwelcome tug of memory. How many afternoons had he spent in her mother's garden, watching her work this same magic?

The scent of sawdust mingled with the floral perfume drifting from her yard—lavender and roses, something sweet he couldn't identify. It was a combination that shouldn't work but somehow did, like everything about Lena had always been.

He forced his attention back to the sketch pad, penciling in the dimensions for the display units. Five custom pieces, built to commercial standards, designed to showcase her arrangements like works of art. Despite everything between them, he found himself wanting to get this right, to build something worthy of her vision.

The sound of her phone ringing drifted through the open windows—his workshop door was cracked, her garden was just thirty feet away, and sound carried in the still morning air. He tried to ignore it, tried to focus on calculating load-bearing requirements, but her voice cut through his concentration like a blade.

"I understand the policy, but this is the third claim you've denied this month." Lena's tone was carefully controlled, but Cal could hear the strain underneath. "The oncologist says the treatments are necessary—"

Oncologist. The word hit Cal like a physical blow. Cancer. Her mother had cancer, and the insurance company was denying coverage for treatment.

"No, I can't just switch doctors. We're in Willow Creek, not Chicago. There's one cancer center within a hundred miles, and Dr. Martinez is the only—" Her voice cracked slightly. "Please. I'm begging you. This isn't elective. This is my mother's life."

Cal's hands stilled on his sketch pad. He shouldn't be listening to this, but her distress was impossible to ignore. Through the window, he could see her pacing among her rescued plants, her free hand pressed to her forehead in a gesture of defeat he'd never associated with Lena Petrova.

"Six thousand dollars? For one month?" The desperation in her voice made his chest tight. "I... I'll need to call you back."

She ended the call and sank onto her garden bench, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs. Cal felt like a voyeur, witnessing pain too private for his eyes, but he couldn't look away. This wasn't the confident woman who'd waltzed back into town with her sunshine smile. This was someone drowning, fighting to keep her head above water while the current pulled her under.

His phone buzzed with a text from Mrs. Henderson, asking about delivery of her dining table, but he barely glanced at it. All his attention was focused on the woman in the garden, on the way she wiped her tears and straightened her shoulders before going back to tending her dying plants.

I didn't leave because I didn't love you. I left because I thought I was ruining your future.

Her words from three days ago suddenly made horrible sense. If her mother had been sick even back then, if money had already been tight... Cal felt something shift in his chest, a crack in the wall of resentment he'd built around his heart.

The next morning, he was sanding cabinet doors when he heard her voice again, drifting through the workshop windows like smoke. He told himself he wasn't actively listening, but his hands slowed on the sandpaper anyway.

"Mom, I know you're worried about the bills, but that's not your job anymore." Lena was in her garden again, phone pressed to her ear, her other hand deadheading roses with automatic precision. "I'm handling it. The shop will be profitable once it's open, and I've got savings—"

Cal knew a lie when he heard one. The collection agency letter she'd tried to hide at the shop, the way she'd gone pale at the insurance estimate for treatment—she didn't have savings. She was choosing between her dreams and her mother's life, and there wasn't enough money for both.

"No, don't you dare apologize. You didn't choose to get sick." Her voice broke on the last word. "We're going to figure this out. The new targeted therapy is working, right? The tumor markers are down?"

Cal found himself holding his breath, waiting for her response to whatever her mother said.

"Good. That's good. Dr. Martinez thinks we can get another six months of coverage approved if we appeal through the state program. I just need to..." She trailed off, then seemed to gather herself. "I need to focus on getting the shop open. First month's revenue should be enough to cover the gap."

Should be. Cal heard the uncertainty she was trying to hide from her mother, the weight of hope that had nowhere solid to land.

After she hung up, Lena stayed in the garden for a long time, working with the quiet intensity he remembered from their teenage years. She was trying to save everything—the plants, the business, her mother's life—and she was doing it alone.

The woman who'd once shared everything with him, who'd told him her deepest fears and wildest dreams, was carrying this burden without asking anyone for help. The realization sat heavy in his chest, mixing with ten years of anger until he couldn't tell which emotion was stronger.

That afternoon, while she was at the shop space working on prep, Cal found himself standing at the property line where their fence used to be. The fallen branch had been removed, but the gap remained—thirty feet of open space that made their houses feel connected rather than separate.

He could build the six-foot privacy fence he'd insisted on, restore the physical barrier between their lives. It would be the smart choice, the safe choice. Or he could build something lower, something that acknowledged they were neighbors now whether they liked it or not.

Or he could do what every instinct screamed against and build nothing at all. Leave the boundary open, the way it had been when they were children, before promises got broken and hearts got hardened.

Standing there in the late afternoon sun, Cal realized his decade of anger had been built on a foundation of incomplete information. The story he'd told himself about Lena's betrayal—that she'd chosen city dreams over small-town love—was crumbling under the weight of her phone calls, her tears, her obvious desperation.

Maybe she hadn't left because she didn't love him. Maybe she'd left because she loved him too much to drag him down with her.

The thought terrified him more than his anger ever had. Anger was simple, clean, easy to maintain. Understanding was messy, complicated, dangerous to the careful life he'd built in her absence.

But as he watched her car pull into her driveway, saw her exhausted slump as she gathered her purse and keys, Cal couldn't shake the feeling that ten years of silence had kept them both trapped in a story that might not be true.

The question was whether he was brave enough to find out what the real story looked like, or if some truths were too dangerous to uncover.

Tomorrow, he'd start building her shelves. Professional obligation, nothing more. But tonight, he stood at the empty space where their fence used to be and wondered if some barriers were meant to come down, even when—especially when—keeping them up felt safer than facing what lay on the other side.