The Ringtone I Never Changed Back
Dad's ringtone still means the hospital, two years after he came home. I answer before the second bar, even for nothing.
My dad has his own ringtone, the one I switched two years ago the week he was in the hospital for four days and I couldn't get to my phone fast enough, missed him twice while a machine somewhere kept dinging that everything was fine. I picked a marimba, too bright for what it meant, and I never switched it back after he came home.
It goes off at 12:40 tonight. I'm out on the fire escape because my roommate's asleep and the living room echoes. I answer before the second bar. He's not calling about anything. He watched a documentary about ferries and wanted to tell someone before he forgot the part he liked.
I say uh huh. I say that's wild, dad. I'm sitting on cold metal in a hoodie doing the math on how many hours of sleep this costs me, and some part of me I don't say out loud is doing the same math about him, wondering if there's a version where he calls someone else first. My sister. His friend from the plant. Anyone whose ringtone isn't wired straight to that week.
I don't say that. I ask him what kind of ferry. He tells me. I could change the ringtone back tomorrow, make it something ordinary, give myself the half second it takes to see his name and choose to pick up. I know I won't. I like being the one who doesn't need that half second. That's the part I'm not looking at too closely tonight.