The first cold morning of fall hit the cab like a wall. I pulled over at a rest stop outside of Butte, frost on the windshield, and I thought about the landline in the kitchen back home.
It still gets one call a year. Usually it’s me, usually around now. I dialed the number, and it rang five times before the old machine picked up.
I told you about the snow. How it started falling just as you walked across the stage, little flakes catching in your hair and on the black gown. I was parked in the lot, watching on a cracked phone screen your mom sent.
You didn’t know I was there. I didn’t want to make it about me. But I saw you look up at the sky, and you smiled, and I felt something crack open in my chest.
I’m forty-three, living in a mining town, sleeping in a truck more nights than not. I’m not the man I was when we talked last. I’m quieter. I’m paying attention.
I don’t know if you’ll ever hear this. Maybe the machine stops working one day, or maybe you finally listen. But I wanted you to know: I saw you. Snow on the gown. And I’m trying to be someone worth calling back.
That’s all. I’ll send money for the winter coat. You take care of yourself.