Sometimes he answers.
Sometimes he doesn’t.
When he answers he’s sweet.
That’s what makes it so hard.
When he’s there he’s really there — his voice low and easy, making me laugh at something stupid, asking about Mara and Jonah, remembering things I told him weeks ago.
• • •
Like nothing is wrong.
Like I’m imagining the gaps.
Maybe I’m imagining the gaps.
I’m not imagining the gaps.
• • •
October.
He calls me out of nowhere on a Tuesday afternoon.
No warning.
Just — my phone ringing and his name on the screen.
I answer so fast I fumble it.
“Hey,” he says.
Loving again.
Easy.
Like the last two weeks of shorter calls didn’t happen.
“Hey,” I say back.
Trying not to sound like what I am, which is a person who has been waiting for this call like oxygen.
We talk for two hours.
Two hours.
He tells me about a car that came into the shop —fill it in here because I don’t know cars— and the owner who cried actual tears when they finished restoring it.
He tells me his professor gave him a B on a paper he worked on for three weeks and he’s been quietly furious about it ever since.
“Write a better paper,” I say.
“I wrote a great paper.”
“You always think you wrote a great paper.”
“Because I always write a great paper.”
