The Recordings My Father Left Behind

My father got home four days later. He had told his dispatcher he had a family emergency, and the dispatcher had asked which one. I saw his truck come over the hill, and the porch light was on in broad daylight, because my sister had switched it on that morning. He never asked me why. I never told him.

We went on that way for twenty-nine years. I told myself an accident of timing had put him in that booth: he happened to call, he happened to worry, he happened to stay.

I did not know there was a prayer.

I found the file on the fifth Saturday after the stroke. It was named 1997-02-16, and it was the longest in the folder, nearly nine minutes. Every other night ran three or four.

I did not tell Sadie I was going to listen. I took the phone out onto the porch swing after supper, under the light my father had never turned off, and I could see my breath.

The recording began with a click, then wind, then a diesel engine, then my father’s breathing.

“It’s Sunday. February sixteenth. It’s twenty after eight, mountain time. I’m at the truck stop outside Rawlins, in the cab with the door shut, and I am afraid.”

“Lord, I’m not a man who says he’s afraid. But I called Sondra at seven, when I always call, and nobody picked up. I called again at eight and a girl answered the hall phone and said Sondra left this afternoon with a bag. She said she didn’t know where. She said it twice, like she wasn’t sure I could hear.”

A long pause.

“I don’t know where she is. I’m fourteen hundred miles from her. I have a load of paper towels for Portland and a window to hit by morning, and I can’t turn this truck around in time. I’ve been trying to think of a way and there isn’t one.”

I pressed the phone to my chest and listened to the rest with my eyes shut.

“So I have to ask You to do what I can’t. I don’t know what she’s carrying. I think I should have heard it in her voice, and I did hear it, and I didn’t ask. I thought if I didn’t ask, she’d feel she had room. I don’t know if that was wisdom or cowardice. You know. Forgive me whichever it was.

“I’m not going to ask You to make her do anything. I’m going to ask You to go where she is. If it’s somewhere bad, be there. If it’s somewhere dark, be the light in it. If she’s on a bus or a road, be on it before she is. She is nineteen years old. She used to sit on the tailgate with a flashlight and read to the dog.

“I’d bargain if I thought You traded that way. So I’ll just say what’s true. I love her. I would walk to where she is. Keep her until I can.

“And if she calls, Lord, if she calls the house, let me be the one who picks up. Let me not say one wrong word. Let me not ask a single question. Let me just say I’m here.

“I’m going to call the house and give Sadie the number of the booth, and then I’m going to sit in it with a roll of quarters as long as it takes. If the company wants to dock me for the load, let them.