The Voicemail Nine Days After I Left

“I’m not staying,” I said. I said it first so nobody would have to wonder. “I came to do two things.”

I went to the cupboard left of the sink and took down the seven bottles and both organizers. I sat down in my mother’s chair. I had brought a roll of white tape and a marker from the bakery.

“Jake. Come sit.”

He sat.

I labeled every one of those little lids. Then I wrote out a card for each bottle, what it was called, what it looked like, what it was for, how many and when, and I taped each card around its bottle with the pharmacy number at the bottom.

“The little round blue one is the blood thinner. One at night. That number changes when the clinic calls after his blood draw, and when they call, you write the new number on this card and you date it. The long blue one is the water pill. Morning only, or he’ll be up all night.”

“Okay.”

“Say it back to me.”

He said it back. He got it right. His hands were shaking some.

Then I had him fill both weeks while I watched. It took him forty minutes. It takes me eight. I did not help him and I did not hurry him.

My father sat across the table the whole time and watched his son count out his pills. He did not say a word. But he watched every one go in.

When Jake snapped the last lid shut, I slid the binder across the oilcloth.

He looked at his name on the front for a long time.

“This is that thing,” he said. “From the shop.”

“Yes.”

He opened it. He turned the tabs over one at a time. Pills. Bank. Computer. Hay and Feed. Vet. Wells and Pumps. Propane. Taxes. Calving Book. And the last tab, which said Mom’s Recipes, because I figured whoever came after me ought to at least be able to make her roast.

He turned to page nineteen. He read it. Flip the main off, wait a full minute, push the red button.

“Two hundred and ten dollars,” he said, mostly to himself.

“I heard.”

He closed the cover and put both hands on top of it. He sat there with his head down like a boy in the principal’s office.

“You wrote this two years ago,” he said. “You tried to hand it to me. And I threw it in your truck.”

“You did.”

“Abby.” His chin was going. “I’m sorry. What I said. I’d give anything to have that back. I missed you the first morning, I swear I did. I came down and there wasn’t any coffee and I just stood here. I was too proud to call until I had a reason.”

“I know,” I said. “I figured that out about the third voicemail.”

He laughed and wiped his face with the back of his wrist at the same time.

“I forgive you, Jake. I mean that. But I’m not coming home.”

“I know. Aunt Lynn told us.” He patted the binder. “She said if either of us asked you to, she’d come back with a wooden spoon.”

I stood up. I pushed my mother’s chair in.

My father stood up too. He walked me to the mudroom door, which was farther than he had walked the night I left.

On the porch he stopped. He looked at my truck for a while.

“Those front tires are about gone,” he said.

“I know it. I’m saving for them.”

He nodded. He worked his jaw.