There is a faint sound of a turn signal clicking in the background.
“Lock the doors. All of them. Even the back one you always forget. And stay out of my snack drawer. I counted what’s in there.”
He always acts like I am a criminal mastermind stealing chocolate bars.
There is a pause. I hear him exhale, and the tone shifts slightly to a softer pitch.
“I’ll grab takeout. Your favourite. Don’t argue. I know you’re going to argue. Just let me be the responsible adult for once.”
Another small pause.
“Love ya. See you soon.”
The message ends.
For a moment, I sit there smiling at nothing, caught up in the memory of him walking through the front door with greasy paper bags.
My smile fades away.
He said, ‘See you soon.’
He left this house expecting to return to it.
He had no idea that the next day he would be lying in a hospital bed while machines handled the work his body forgot how to do.
Then reality crashes back in.
He is neither late nor stuck in traffic. He isn’t about to walk through that front door.
Instead he is lying in a hospital bed, eyes closed, skin pale, chest rising because a machine tells it to.
All it would take is one call.
One gentle voice on the other end saying, “I’m sorry, Lola. You need to come in. Your dad is not going to wake up.”
That is the gap between now and a completely different life.
One call and everything I know would split down the middle.
My breathing suddenly becomes ragged. It catches halfway through and comes out shaky. There’s a pressure in my chest, as if something is pressing against my ribs from the inside.
I stare at my phone as if it might light up and prove that fear right.
What if he never walks back into this house again?
What if his voice becomes a recording I replay at three in the morning just to remember how he says “Button,” the way he tries to sound stern and fails.
The thought does not creep in gently. It detonates and something inside me splinters. The sob comes out. It folds me in half before I can catch it. My hand flies to my mouth but it does nothing to stop the sound.
Another one comes, harsher. My shoulders shake violently, breath hitching in ragged pulls that burn on the way in and scrape on the way out. Tears spill fast and hot, blurring everything.
I try to breathe in, but it stutters, caught somewhere between my lungs and my throat. I press my fist against my chest as if I can physically hold myself together.
My whole body trembles with it—grief, fear, and the image of this house without him… all come crashing over me in waves that are impossible to stay above.
I need air.
I need noise.
