It’s just that I was missing my father. His guilty-yet-triumphant toddler smile when he finished off a brand-new pack of the Circus Peanuts we both loved and were supposed to share. His rueful laugh when we were dissecting the vicissitudes of being human — as a philosophy prof specializing in ethics, he had a lot to say about those. His hugs, comforting me through so many hard times caused by said vicissitudes. He hadn’t been here for this latest one, the hard decision me and mom had to make for me to go to UMass instead of my dream school, Eckerd. Even with a pretty good scholarship, it was too far away — we didn’t have enough for travel funds — and just all ’round too expensive.
I was missing him so much.
I went to our old landline number in my contacts. Dad had insisted on having “an actual honest-to-god telephone” right up to the end.
“Fight back against the siloing of the individual!” he would say, which made a kind of high-horse sense and was very Dad but was super annoying when one of his students got vaporized and called in the middle of the night with some ethical dilemma that couldn’t wait. I don’t know how many times during my childhood that obnoxious ring woke me up. I would fall back to sleep to the sound of Dad’s professorial murmur. He took ethics that seriously, even though the student probably never remembered a thing in the morning.
“Corsair’s Catsitting, help you?”
The words were businesslike, but the person who answered sounded cozy. Their voice had a little drawl to it, like they were born somewhere south of here. Like they were holding something sweet in their mouth. Their voice made me let out a big sigh. Both because of the cozy and because it wasn’t Dad.
Whoever it was sighed back. “Is this Maddy?” they asked, the slight accent leaving, replaced by a bit of ice. “You can’t keep calling me at work.”
“I, no…” My voice was croaky. I’d been crying.
“Oh, not Maddy. Sorry. What are your dates?”
That was a confusing question. August 8, 2005, I come into this world. May 9, 2013, the amount of CO2 in the world’s atmosphere exceeds 400 ppm. April 23, 2022, Dad leaves this world. May 7, 2022, I’m suspended for supergluing myself to the principal’s desk in protest of the school’s I Don’t Give a Fuck policy toward climate justice.
“My dates?”
The person’s voice changed again, bemused, I guess you could say. “Who is this? Is this a wrong number? Are you making a prank call? Or are you actually looking for a cat sitter?”
There was such a smile in the person’s voice, like they were up for anything, even a breather, even Maddy (an ex?), even me.
“We’re between cats,” I said, then shook my head at myself. “I mean, I’m not calling about a cat sitter. This used to be my dad’s number. Sorry to bother you. I’ll hang up now.”
“Wait!” Now there was a question in the voice, a hint of sympathy. It was going to make me cry. I really was going to hang up. My thumb hovered.
“No, wait!” the person said. “Used to be? Then why are you calling? Doesn’t he have a phone anymore?”
“No phone,” I said, tears leaking.
“Oh.” They understood, I could tell. “I get it,” they said softly. And even more softly, “So you called to talk to me, then. What was his name?”
Anna Watson is a butch-loving old school femme dyke writer who lives in Arlington. She spends as much time as possible in Provincetown, where she has read many times at Womencrafts.
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