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I make my way back to the Unit. I walk in and I walk through the Halls to dinner. Every meal is now the same.

After dinner there is a Lecture. A man telling his life story. He was bad and he joined AA and now he’s good. I have heard it too many times.

I go back to the Unit and I sit and I watch TV. There is a sitcom about some witty New Yorkers who spend all of their time in one Apartment. One of the men praises the show and he talks about how real it is. The only people I know who spend so much time in one Apartment usually have black plastic taped over the windows and guns in the closet and burn marks on their lips and fingers and huge locks on the doors. They are not witty people, though their paranoia can be amusing. I don’t see anything like that on this show, but it is supposedly very real. Maybe I don’t know what real is anymore.

The phone rings, the phone has been ringing all night. This ring, however, draws my attention. Somehow I know it is Lilly even though I shouldn’t and even though I have no reason to know that it is Lilly. I stand and I am walking before the man calls out my name. As he does, I take the receiver and I thank him and I put the receiver to my ear and I speak.

Hi.

Hi.

How are you?

Good. You?

I’m good.

I miss you.

I laugh.

You miss me?

Yeah, I miss you. Why’s that funny?

No one has ever missed me before. People tend to be happy when I’m gone.

She laughs.

Not me.

Good. I like that you miss me.

I like it too.

I smile.

What’d you do tonight?

Sat here and watched the clock until I thought I could call you without seeming desperate.

I laugh.

What’d you do?

Sat here and waited for you to call and thought about what I was gonna say to you so that I didn’t sound desperate.

She laughs, speaks.

I guess we’re desperate.

Probably a bit.

For what?

Freedom. However we can find it.

And you think one of those forms could be each other?

Maybe.

It wasn’t what I expected when I came here.

You shouldn’t expect anything now. You should just wait and see what happens.

Well said.

Thank you.

You want to meet me again tomorrow.

Sure.

You can tell me another story.

I think it’s your turn.

I think you’re right.

You got anything in mind?

Ask me a question, same as I did to you, and I’ll give you an answer.

And whatever that answer is, I won’t judge you.

Thank you.

I’ll see you tomorrow.

I miss you.

I like that you miss me.

I like that you like it.

Bye.

Bye.

I put the receiver in the cradle and I stare at the phone and I smile. It’s not just a smile of momentary happiness. When it disappears from my face, it will stay with me.

I turn and I walk through the Unit and into the Hall and toward my Room. As I approach it, I can hear the soft sounds of Miles’s clarinet drifting through the door. I stop outside and I listen to it. He is playing low like he always plays low. He is holding the notes for longer than I would think he’d be able to hold them. He is repeating a melody over and over each time with variations. It is simple music, made by one man and his lungs and a piece of metal with holes and his fingers moving along the holes. It is just sound low then higher slow then faster slow again and low, repeated with variations. There are no words and there is no singing, but the music has a voice. It is an old voice and a deep voice, like the stump of a sweet cigar or a shoe with a hole. It is a voice that has lived and lives, with sorrow and shame, ecstasy and bliss, joy and pain, redemption and damnation. It is a voice with love and without love. I like the voice, and though I can’t talk to it, I like the way it talks to me. It says it is all the same, Young Man. Take it and let it be.

The song the melody the old, low and slow voice ends. It ends and it trails off into the quiet of a sleeping Hall. I open the door and I step into my Room. Miles sitting on his bed his lips are still holding the reed. He nods to me and I nod back to him. I walk over to my bed. I take off my clothes and I climb beneath the covers