I leave before dawn most weekends. The nursing home is three hours away, past the one tall building in our city and then nothing but highway.
This time I left at 3 AM because the night nurse called. My mother had been up, confused, asking for me.
I pulled into the rest stop to stretch my legs. A kid was mopping the floor, his first day on the job, I could tell by the way he held the mop like he was scared of it.
He reminded me of myself at sixteen, first day sweeping hair at Tony's shop.
On the counter by the sink was a motel notepad, the kind you see in cheap rooms. A phone number was written in ballpoint pen, the ink smudged. I don't know who left it. I almost dialed it once, years ago, but I never did.
I stood there with the paper in my hand, thinking about all the numbers I've never called, all the drives I've made without really seeing the road.
My mother is eighty-nine now. She doesn't remember that I'm a barber, but she remembers my hands. She says 'your hands feel like Dad's'.
I got back in the car and drove the rest of the way. The kid was still mopping. I wanted to tell him it gets easier, but I didn't know his name.