The Dot Hasn't Moved Since 1:07

my brother's dot on the family map has been frozen outside dillon's for forty minutes now. i know the bar. it's not near his apartment, it's three exits past it, which he explained once and i didn't ask twice.

i told my mom last year i was stepping back. that he's twenty-four, that watching a blue dot on a map was not my job anymore, that i had, in her words, earned some peace. i believe i meant it.

what i didn't do was take the app off his phone. i put it there two winters ago for parking, so he could find his car after a shift, and i never once brought up deleting it, and neither did he, and here we are.

the dot hasn't moved since 1:07. the battery icon next to his name went grey ten minutes ago, which the app says just means low power, which is probably exactly what it means.

i have his roommate's number saved for emergencies. i haven't opened that thread either.

what i'm doing instead is refreshing. pulling the screen down, watching the little wheel spin, watching the dot land in the same spot, over and over, like the ninth refresh will tell me something the eighth didn't.

i haven't called him. i haven't called my mom. i don't know yet if that's restraint or just a longer way of admitting i never actually put the app down.