Chapter 6: The Phone on the Hall Table
Susan and Vincent were still arguing by the window and Marcus hadn't moved from where he'd crouched beside the torn portrait. I could hear Arthur breathing behind me, this thin, uneven sound, but none of them were looking at me.
That's when I remembered the hall table.
Arthur's phone had been sitting there for weeks. I had noticed it because nobody ever touched it. It was just there next to the little ceramic dish where my mom kept her keys, screen dark, with a fine layer of dust on it. She'd told me once that Grandpa didn't need it anymore where he was.
I slipped back from the portrait frame one step at a time. My socks didn't make any noise on the hardwood. Marcus was talking low to Arthur now and Susan had her back half-turned toward Vincent, her arms crossed tight across her cream blouse.
The hall table was just past the living room doorway. Arthur's phone was exactly where I remembered it, face-down beside the dish. It was an older iPhone in a black case, the kind with the home button. I picked it up. It was cold.
I pressed the side button. Nothing happened. I held it longer. The screen stayed black.
Behind me I heard Susan say, "Vincent, you need to lower your voice," and then her footsteps shifted. I turned the phone over and pressed the button again, harder, like that would help.
"Eli." Her voice was right behind me. "What are you doing?"
She was there at the edge of the hall, hand already reaching out. Her face was pale but her mouth was set in that controlled way she had when she didn't want Dad to see she was upset.
I held the phone out without letting go. "It won't turn on."
She took it anyway, her fingers closing over mine for a second. "This is your grandfather's. It needs to stay there."
"Why is it dead?" I asked.
She glanced toward the living room where Marcus was still with Arthur. She lowered her voice. "Because he got agitated when it rang. The doctor said we should limit stimulation. I was managing his calls for him. He didn't need the confusion."
That didn't make sense and I knew it even before I said anything. Arthur had always kept his phone charged. He used to call me after school just to ask what I'd had for lunch.
I didn't let go of the phone right away. "Did Grandpa ask you to turn it off?"
Susan's lips tightened. She pulled the phone gently from my hand. "Eli, honey, you don't understand the decisions we had to make to keep him comfortable."
Marcus had stood up. I hadn't heard him move but he was suddenly in the doorway, looking at the phone in Susan's hand. Vincent was right behind him.
"Is that my dad's phone?" Marcus asked.
Susan turned it over in her palm like she was deciding what to do with it. "It's dead. I've been keeping it here so it wouldn't disturb him."
Marcus held out his hand. "Let me see it."
She hesitated for maybe two seconds, then placed it in his palm. Marcus pressed the side button just like I had. Nothing. He tried the volume button and the side button together. Still black.
"Where's the charger?" he asked.
Vincent shifted his weight. "We may have put it in the kitchen drawer. I'm not sure."
Marcus didn't look at him. He walked past Susan into the kitchen and I followed. He pulled open the junk drawer by the fridge and dug through takeout menus and spare keys until he found a white charging cable tangled around an old power brick. He plugged it into the outlet by the counter and connected the phone.
We stood there watching it. For a long second nothing happened, then the screen lit up with the low battery symbol, that red bar at the bottom. Marcus exhaled through his nose.
It took almost a minute before the phone buzzed and the Apple logo appeared. Then the lock screen came on. There was a list of notifications stacked up, and at the top it said 17 Missed Calls.
Marcus swiped up and the phone asked for a passcode. He tried Arthur's birthday, 1948, then 1951. On the third try, 0711, it unlocked. It opened to the phone app.
He tapped Recents.
I leaned in close. The list was short. At the top were calls to and from two names only. Susan. Vincent. Over and over for weeks, all short calls, some missed. Then he tapped the little i next to a number at the bottom and tapped it, and the contact card opened. It said Marcus - Mobile. Under it, in red letters, it said Blocked Caller.
Marcus went still. His thumb hovered over the screen.
He scrolled up again and tapped another entry. Same thing. Every call from his number in the last month had that same red note. Blocked. No outgoing calls to him at all.
"Where are the calls to me?" he said quietly, not to me, to Susan who had come to stand in the kitchen doorway.
Susan's hand went to the back of the chair like she had before, gripping it. "He kept getting confused. He would call you in the middle of the night—"
"You blocked my number on my father's phone?" Marcus said. His voice was flat and low. He turned the screen so Vincent could see it. "And you only left yours and Vincent's unblocked?"
Vincent looked at the floor. Susan didn't answer. The phone buzzed again in Marcus's hand as another notification tried to come through, but the battery was still at two percent and the screen dimmed.
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Marcus pulled the cable tighter and set the phone carefully back on the counter to keep charging. He looked at me, then back at the hall where Arthur was.
"We're going to leave this right here until it has power," he said. "Nobody touches it again."
