The Last One
Episode 3 of 3 of My Father’s Sunday Calls by Helen Abbott
I called my brother on a Sunday. At four o’clock. I did that on purpose.
“You knew,” I said. No hello.
He was quiet for a long time. I could hear a TV in the background. Then he turned it off.
“Yes,” he said.
“You took it. The money. You took it and you let him think it was me, and then when you finally told him, you didn’t tell me. You let me keep not answering.”
“I was going to.”
“When?”
“I don’t know. I kept thinking there’d be a better week.”
I have thought about that answer a lot. It is the worst thing my brother has ever said to me and it is also, I think, true. There was never a better week. There was just the next Sunday, and then the next one, and then a Tuesday.
“He forgave you,” I said.
“I know.”
“He forgave you and he called me every week to say the dog got into the trash, and I let it ring.”
My brother started to cry. My brother, who does not cry. I listened to him do it and I did not help him, and then, after a while, I did.
The last voicemail was from the Sunday before he died. Number forty-one. I saved it for last on purpose, and then I couldn’t play it for three more days.
It’s twenty seconds. He sounds fine. That’s what gets me. He sounds completely fine.
“Hey. It’s Sunday. Your brother’s coming for dinner, I’m making the chicken thing you like, the one with the lemon. There’s plenty. Come if you want. Or don’t, I’ll save you some. Love you. Bye.”
Or don’t, I’ll save you some.
I didn’t go. He saved me some. I don’t know what happened to it, and I’ve decided not to ask.
I kept all forty-one. My brother asked if I wanted him to back them up somewhere, and I said yes, and that was the first thing we agreed on in a year. Now we talk on Sundays. At four. It was his idea, and I said fine like it didn’t matter, and it matters more than almost anything.
Last Sunday my phone rang at 4:02.
And for one full second, before I looked at the screen, before I remembered anything at all, I thought, he’s a little late today.