I LET HIS LAST CALL GO TO VOICEMAIL

Dear Delyara, My father called me seven times the night he died. I was angry with him. He had started drinking again, and I had promised myself I would stop rescuing him. When his name appeared, I turned the phone facedown. The eighth call came from a hospital. He had fallen in the kitchen and hit his head. The doctor said he may have been conscious for nearly an hour. I keep imagining him on the floor, reaching for the phone, choosing my name over and over. People tell me I was setting a boundary. I understand the language. The language does not visit me at four in the morning when I hear his last voicemail. He says only, “Kiddo, pick up.” There is a sound after that. Maybe breathing. Maybe the phone moving against the floor. I was trying to teach him that I could not always save him. Now I will live forever with the possibility that one answer might have.