“Thirty-one years,” she said.
Her voice was quiet, and the whole room leaned toward it.
“I answered my first call at three-twelve in the morning on a Tuesday. A woman, whispering. She said, ‘Hello, I’d like to order a pizza.’ I almost told her she had the wrong number. Then I heard what was underneath.”
Nobody moved.
“When a person is in trouble and can’t say it, they say something else. That’s what a dispatcher hears. Not the words. The thing under the words.” She turned her head toward her son. “Craig, I taught that child one rule. If you’re ever in trouble, say ‘peach cobbler.’ I’ve never been prouder than I was this week when he used it.”
“Mom.” Craig’s voice cracked. “Mom, you were sleepy. You didn’t know what you were —”
“I haven’t been sleepy since the twelfth of September.”
