The First Phone Call From Heaven: A Novel

  Tess paused. “She also said this wouldn’t last.”

  “What?”

  “This connection.”

  “Did she say how long?”

  Tess shook her head.

  “So you haven’t told anyone else?” Jack asked.

  “No. Have you?”

  “No.”

  “Not even your wife?”

  “We’re divorced.”

  “She’s still his mother.”

  “I know. But what would I tell her?”

  Tess lowered her eyes. She looked at her bare feet. It had been two months since her last pedicure.

  “When did you lose him? Your son?”

  “Two years ago. Afghanistan. Came out of a building he was inspecting, and a car exploded six feet in front of him.”

  “That’s awful.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But you buried him. There was a funeral?”

  “I saw the body, if that’s what you mean.”

  Tess winced. “Sorry.”

  Jack stared into his cup. They teach you, as children, that you might go to heaven. They never teach you that heaven might come to you.

  “Do you think it’s just the two of us?” Tess asked.

  Jack looked away, embarrassed by the sudden connection he felt to this beautiful woman at least ten years his junior. The way she said “the two of us.”

  “Maybe,” he said, feeling compelled to add, “maybe not.”

  Amy steered her Nine Action News car up the highway ramp. She stepped on the gas, and when the road broadened to three lanes, she exhaled.

  After three days in Coldwater, she felt as if she were returning to the real world. Her camera was in the trunk. Next to it was a canvas bag with her tapes. She thought back to her conversations with Katherine Yellin, the redheaded, blue-eye-shadowed woman whose beauty had probably peaked in high school. Despite the old Ford she drove and the homemade coffee cake she served, she was a bit too intense for Amy. They were not so far apart in age—Katherine was in her midforties; Amy was thirty-one—but Amy doubted she could ever seize on anything as fervently as Katherine had seized on the afterlife.

  “Heaven awaits us,” Katherine had said.

  “Let me get the camera set up.”

  “My sister says it’s glorious.”

  “That’s amazing.”

  “Are you a believer, Amy?”

  “This isn’t about me.”

  “But you are, aren’t you, Amy?”

  “Yes. Sure. I am.”

  Amy tapped the steering wheel. It was a small lie. So what? She had gotten the interview. She wasn’t coming back. She would edit what she had, see if Phil even aired it, and resume her hunt for a better job.

  She lifted her iPhone and checked it for messages. In her mind, Coldwater was already a speck in her rearview mirror.

  But nothing changes a small town more than an outsider.

  The tapes in her trunk would prove it.

  Four Days Later

  NEWS REPORT

  Channel 9, Alpena

  (Images of Coldwater telephone poles.) AMY: It seems, at first, like any other small town, with telephone poles and wires. But according to one citizen of Coldwater, those wires may be connected to a higher power than the phone company!

  (Katherine on camera, holding phone.)

  KATHERINE: I received a call from my older sister, Diane.

  (Photograph of Diane.)

  AMY: Here’s the twist. Diane died nearly two years ago from an aneurysm. Katherine Yellin got her first call last month, and says she’s been getting calls every Friday since.

  (Katherine on camera.)

  KATHERINE: Oh, yes, I am sure it is her. She tells me she is happy in heaven. She says that she’s . . .

  (Camera closer; Katherine cries.)

  . . . she’s waiting for me, that they are waiting for all of us.

  AMY: Do you believe this is a miracle?

  KATHERINE: Of course.

  (Amy, in front of Harvest of Hope Baptist Church.) AMY: Katherine announced her call at this church last Sunday. The reaction was a mix of shock and hope. Of course, not everyone is convinced.

  (Image of Father Carroll.)

  FATHER CARROLL: We must be very cautious when speaking about eternity. These are matters best left to—if you pardon the way it sounds—higher authorities.

  (Amy, walking under phone line.)

  AMY: At least one other person claims to have received a call from the other side, although that person chose not to speak with us. Still, here in Coldwater, people are wondering if they might be the next to get a phone call from heaven.

  (Amy stops walking.)

  I’m Amy Penn, Nine Action News.

  Pastor Warren flipped off the TV set. His face was drawn in thought. Perhaps not many people had seen the report, he told himself. It was very short, no? And people forget about the news as quickly as they view it.

  He was glad he had not spoken to the reporter, despite several dogged attempts on her part. He had explained, patiently, that it was not for a pastor to comment on such events, as the church had not taken an official position on it. He was happy to let Father Carroll make a general statement, something the other clergymen had agreed upon.

  Warren locked his office and walked into the empty sanctuary. He knelt, his knees aching, shut his eyes, and said a prayer. At moments like these, he felt closest to the Lord. Alone in His house. He allowed himself the idea that the Almighty had taken control of this situation, and that would be the end of it—one outburst by a congregant, one curious TV reporter, and nothing more.

  On his way out, he took his scarf off the hook and wrapped it tightly around his neck. It was well after five, so the phones had been turned off. Warren left without noticing that every line on Mrs. Pulte’s desk was now blinking.

  In the dream—which Sully had several times a week—he was back in the cockpit, helmet on, visor down, oxygen mask in place. He felt a terrible thud. The plane wobbled. The gauges froze. He pulled a handle, and a canopy blew away. A rocket exploded beneath him. His skeleton screamed in pain. Then everything went silent. He saw a small fire, far below him, the wreckage of his aircraft. He saw another fire. Even smaller.

  As he floated toward earth, a voice whispered, Don’t go down there. Stay in the sky. It’s safe up here.

  Giselle’s voice.

  He jolted awake, sweating. His eyes darted. He was on the couch in his apartment, having fallen asleep after two vodka and cranberry juices. The TV was on. Channel 9, the Alpena station. He blinked at the image of a female reporter standing in front of a familiar-looking church. It was Harvest of Hope, a mile from where Sully was now.

  “Still, here in Coldwater, people are wondering if they might be the next to get a phone call from heaven.”

  “You gotta be kidding me,” Sully mumbled.

  “Can we eat now, Dad?”

  He lifted his head to see Jules leaning against the side of the couch.

  “Sure, buddy. Daddy was just sleeping.”

  “You always sleep.”

  Sully found his glass and swigged the now-warm alcohol. He groaned and sat up. “I’ll make some spaghetti.”

  Jules pulled a loose piece of rubber on his sneakers. Sully realized he had to buy the kid new shoes.

  “Dad?”

  “Yeah?”

  “When is Mommy going to call us?”

  Enough was enough. Although Tess had been sending e-mails to work, saying she needed time to herself and please not to call her, when news of the house fire reached her coworkers, two of them—Lulu and Samantha—drove out to her place. They banged on the door. Tess opened it, shielding her eyes against the sun.

  “Oh my God,” Lulu gasped. Their friend looked thinner and paler than the last time they’d seen her. Her long blond hair was pulled back in a thick ponytail, which made her face seem even more gaunt.

  “Tess, are you OK?”

  “I’m all right.”

  “Can w
e come in?”

  “Sure.” She stepped back. “Sorry.”

  Once inside, Tess’s friends looked around. The lower level seemed as tidy as ever, except for smoke stains that speckled the walls. But the upstairs was dark with burn marks. A bedroom door was charred. The stairs were blocked off by two pieces of wood, crossed in a box frame.

  “Did you build that?” Samantha asked.

  “No. This guy did.”

  “What guy?”

  “A guy from the police department.”

  Samantha flashed Tess a look. They had been friends for years, and had jointly opened the day care center. They ate together, covered each other’s shifts, shared every delight and every distress. A guy? A fire? And she didn’t know about it? Samantha stepped forward, grabbed Tess’s hands, and said, “Hey. It’s me. What’s going on?”

  Over the next two hours, Tess told her coworkers what had seemed unimaginable just a few weeks earlier. She detailed the calls. Her mother’s voice. She explained the fire, how the furnace in the basement had gone out, how she’d put space heaters around the house and one of them shorted out while she was sleeping and with one spark—whoosh!—the second level was toast.

  She told them about Jack Sellers saving the phone and answering machine from the fire. She confessed how she’d feared she’d lost her mother again, how she’d prayed and fasted, and how, when a call came three days later and she heard the words—Tess, it’s me—she’d fallen to her knees.

  When she finished talking, they were all crying.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Tess whispered.

  “Are you one hundred percent sure?”

  “It’s her, Lulu. I swear it.”

  Samantha shook her head in amazement. “The whole town is talking about those two people from Harvest of Hope. And all this time, you were getting calls too.”

  “Wait,” Tess said, swallowing. “There are others?”

  “It was on the news,” Lulu confirmed.

  The three friends exchanged glances.

  “Makes you wonder,” Samantha said, “how many more people this is happening to.”

  Two days after the TV report, Katherine Yellin was awakened at 6:00 a.m. by a noise on her porch.

  She had been dreaming of the night Diane died. They’d had plans to go to a classical music concert. Instead, Katherine found her sister collapsed on the living room floor, between the glass coffee table and the tufted leather ottoman. She dialed 911 and screamed the address, then cradled Diane’s body, holding her cooling hand until the ambulance arrived. An aneurysm is a swelling of the aorta; a rupture can kill you in seconds. Katherine would later reason that if anything were going to take away her beautiful, funny, precious older sister, it would be that her heart was so big, it exploded.

  In the dream, Diane miraculously opened her eyes and said she needed to use the phone.

  Where is it, Kath?

  Then Katherine was jolted awake by the sound of . . . what was that? Humming?

  She slipped on her robe and walked nervously downstairs. She pulled the curtain from her living room window.

  She put a hand to her chest.

  On her lawn, in the early-morning light, she saw five people in their overcoats, on their knees and holding hands, their eyes closed.

  The noise that had woken Katherine was clear now.

  It was the sound of people praying.

  Amy had once again selected her finest suit and taken care with her makeup, but she had no expectations as she sat down with Phil Boyd. He didn’t think much of her talent, she knew that. Yet from the start of this conversation, she detected a new tone.

  “So, what did you think of Coldwater?”

  “Um . . . it’s a small town. Pretty typical.”

  “And the people?”

  “Nice enough.”

  “How’s your relationship with this”—he glanced at a notepad—“Katherine Yellin?”

  “Fine. I mean, she told me the whole thing. What happened. What she thinks happened, anyhow.”

  “Does she trust you?”

  “I think so.”

  “You went to her house?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did the phone ring while you were there?”

  “No.”

  “But you saw the phone?”

  “It’s a cell. Pink. She carries it everywhere.”

  “And the other guy?”

  “He didn’t want to talk. I asked. I went to where he works, and—”

  Phil held up a palm as if to say, Don’t worry, it happens. Amy was surprised he was this understanding—or this interested in what she considered a nothing story. Weren’t people always claiming to get signs from the “other side”? They saw Mother Mary on a garden wall or Jesus’s face in an English muffin. Nothing ever came of it.

  “How would you feel about going back?”

  “To Coldwater?”

  “Yes.”

  “To do another story?”

  “To stay on the story.”

  She lifted her eyebrows. “You mean, wait until they hear from another dead person? Report on it like it’s news?”

  Phil drummed his fingers on the desktop. “Let me show you something.” He rolled his chair to his computer screen, banged a few keys, then spun the monitor.

  “Did you check the Internet post of your story?”

  “Not yet,” Amy said, leaving out the reason—that her fiancé, Rick, had confronted her the minute she got home last night, another one of their arguments over how much she valued her career versus how much she valued him.

  “Take a look at the comments,” Phil said. He was almost smiling.

  Amy swept her bangs back with one hand and leaned forward. Beneath the story headlined COLDWATER RESIDENTS CLAIM HEAVENLY CONTACT was a list of e-mailed responses. She saw enough to fill the screen—which was odd, since stories she did usually drew zero.

  “That’s good, huh?” Amy asked. “What’s that . . . five, six . . . eight responses?”

  “Look closer,” Phil said.

  She did. Atop the list she saw something she’d missed, something that sent a shiver down the back of her neck: Comments: 8 of 14,706.

  Sully scooped potatoes onto his son’s plate. It was Thursday night. Dinner with his parents. They invited him often, trying to save him money. He still hadn’t found a job. Still hadn’t unpacked the boxes. He couldn’t rouse himself to do much of anything except drink, smoke, take Jules to school—and think.

  He wished he could stop thinking.

  “Can I have more?” Jules asked.

  “That’s plenty,” Sully said.

  “Sully, let him have more—”

  “Mom.”

  “What?”

  “He can’t waste food. I’m trying to teach him.”

  “We can afford it.”

  “Well, not everyone can.”

  Sully’s father coughed, which halted the conversation. He put down his fork.

  “I saw that news car from Alpena today,” he said. “It was parked at the bank.”

  “Everyone is talking about that story,” his mother said. “It’s spooky. Dead people making phone calls.”

  “Please,” Sully mumbled.

  “You think they’re making it up?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Well, I’m not sure.” She cut a piece of chicken. “Myra knows that man from the church. Elias Rowe. He built her house.”

  “And?”

  “She says he found a mistake once in her billing and brought her a check for the difference. Drove all the way over. At night.”

  “And that means?”

  “That he’s honest.”

  Sully poked at his potatoes. “One has nothing to do with the other.”

  “What do you think, Fred?”

  Sully’s father exhaled. “I think people believe what they want to believe.”

  Sully silently wondered how that sentence applied to him.

  “Well, if it makes that poor wo
man feel better about losing her sister, what harm does it do?” his mother said. “My aunt used to talk to ghosts all the time.”

  “Mom,” Sully snapped. He nodded toward Jules and whispered, “Do you mind?”

  “Oh,” she said, softly.

  “Hell, the Bible says God spoke through a burning bush,” Fred said. “Is that any stranger than a telephone?”

  “Can we drop it?” Sully asked.

  They clanked their silverware and chewed silently.

  “Can I have more potatoes now?” Jules asked.

  “Finish what you have,” Sully said.

  “He’s hungry,” his mother said.

  “He eats when he’s with me, Mom.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “I can provide for my son!”

  “Easy, Sully,” his father said.

  More silence. It seemed to lie on the table between them. Finally, Jules put his fork down and asked, “What does ‘provide’ mean?”

  Sully stared at his plate. “It means to give to someone.”

  “Grandma?”

  “Yes, sweetie?”

  “Can you provide me a phone?”

  “Why?”

  “I want to call Mommy in heaven.”

  “You coming to Pickles, Jack?”

  The day shift was over. The guys were going for a beer. Coldwater did not have a nighttime police force. Emergencies were handled by 911.

  “I’ll meet you there,” Jack said. He waited until they left. Only Dyson was in the building now, in the break room with the microwave. Jack smelled popcorn. He shut his office door.

  “Dad, it’s me. . . .”

  “Where are you, Robbie?”

  “You know where. Don’t keep it secret. You can tell them the truth now.”

  “What truth?”

  “The end is not the end.”

  Jack had had that exchange less than an hour earlier. That made six Fridays in a row. Six calls from a boy he had buried. He punched up the list of received numbers on his phone. The most recent, Robbie’s call, was marked UNKNOWN. Once again—as he had done countless times already—he pressed redial and listened to a series of short, high-pitched beeps. Then nothing. No connection. No voice mail. Not even a recording. Just silence. He wondered again—now that, according to TV, there were others besides Tess and Jack receiving these calls—whether he should start some kind of investigation. But how could he investigate something without admitting he was a part of it? He hadn’t even told Doreen yet. Besides, this was Coldwater. They had one squad car, a couple of computers, old metal file cabinets, and a budget that allowed them to operate six days a week.