My mom called twice today and I watched the phone light up both times and let it go. I do this most days now. It's almost three and I'm telling the ceiling about it because I can't tell her.
It isn't that I don't love her. It's that every call is a list of how she's tired and how the stairs are getting harder and how my brother doesn't visit, and I sit there saying mm and I know until I feel like I'm made of paper. So I let it ring. I tell myself I'll call back tomorrow when I have more in me.
There's a voicemail from Tuesday I still haven't played. I can see the little red dot. I know roughly what she'll say. I think I'm afraid that one day the thing she says will be something I needed to hear in time, and I'll have let it sit here like this, glowing, while I pretended to be asleep.