Chapter 4 — Thanksgiving

That night I did something I had been avoiding for six weeks without ever once admitting it to myself.

I sat down at the kitchen table with my phone and I scrolled back through two years of messages from my daughter.

It took a long time. Emily texts the way she does everything, which is often and small. Photographs of a plant she was keeping alive. A picture of the batteries in my junk drawer with the caption you’re welcome. Reminders about my own appointments.

I went through all of it looking for the thing I had missed, and I want to tell you that it wasn’t there. That would be easier and it would also be the sort of lie a man tells to stay upright.

It was there. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving, fourteen months earlier. 11:40 at night.

Dad are you up
I’m up. You okay?
yeah. random question. when mom was alive did she ever not want to come home