Flash Fiction: One Call Away by Melina Maria Morry

One Call Away is a short story I started writing nearly a decade ago and recently put the finishing touches on. Sometimes, you just have to let it breathe. (Cue: Blu Cantrell.) In my usual style, it’s short and sorrowful. Hope you enjoy.

One Call Away by Melina Maria Morry

One afternoon, seconds after I’d burned my fingers on microwave macaroni and cheese in my employer’s penthouse kitchen, I got an unexpected phone call. I guess you could say most calls are unexpected. If I were to get specific, I’d describe this one as unwanted. Nevertheless…
“Hey Maggie,” I said jovially when I picked up. I held the phone with my left hand as my right cooled off under the cold water tap. Maggie was a friend of my dad’s. I’d met her recently on a trip back home. She had this thing she’d say before someone took her picture, which I found hilarious: “A shampoo shot, please!” It meant that she only wanted you to capture her head and shoulders. 
“Mira,” said someone who was definitely not Maggie. I pulled the phone away from my ear to check. Sure enough, it was Maggie’s contact info displayed. “It’s Trevor.” Another one of my dad’s friends. But why was he calling? And why was he using Maggie’s phone to do it?
“Hey,” I said, perplexed. “What’s up?” I turned off the tap, wiped my hand on my jeans, and slid the bowl of pasta across the counter for Riley. She was just big enough to climb up onto the bar stools on her own, which she did with only minor struggle. I flipped open her iPad, folding the leather case back and magnetically clipping it into a stand for the screen. She immediately began perusing her YouTube history.
“Have you heard from your dad?” Trevor asked. 
I racked my brain. Hmm. “The last time I talked to him was on Sunday.” It was now Wednesday. Usually, my dad and I spoke once or twice a week on the phone, and then texted other little tidbits we wanted to share. We were close, but neither of us felt the need to be in constant contact. That was just how our relationship was. Thanks, in part, due to a massive strain my mother put on it during their tumultuous divorce; the wedge she steadfastly drove between us was as sturdy as the clogs she favored.
“I’ve got some bad news,” Trevor said. He sounded choked up. Emotional. Words clogging his throat like rush hour traffic on the freeway. “Your dad…”
“What about him?” I could tell something was wrong from the way my stomach involuntarily clenched. Good news, people want to scream from Runyon Canyon. Bad news? It was like extracting fingernails. I quickly glanced over at Riley. She was consumed by her lunch and video. “Trevor?”
He inhaled. It echoed down the phone like he was breathing in all of the oxygen in the world. Briefly, I wondered if there’d be any left for me. “Your dad has brain cancer. Stage four. He’s in surgery right now. They think he’ll make it but it’s not looking good.”
For all I knew, I could have been plummeting the twenty-five stories from my boss’s three-bedroom condo to the sidewalk. My limbs didn’t feel like my own and my tears, although silent, were flowing freely. Somehow, my feet managed to carry me eleven steps to the corner bedroom, out of Riley’s sight, and I collapsed in a heap on the floor. I didn’t want to let her see me like this. After all, she was my job. Earlier that day we’d baked cupcakes and licked icing off spatulas. We’d read library books on the couch and danced around the house to Ariana Grande. And while we’d been doing that, my dad was having brain surgery. My dad was having brain surgery? It didn’t seem real. It couldn’t be. My dad was fit and strong. He sailed his catamaran in Puget Sound and ran marathons for fun.
“Mira? Are you there?”
“Yeah,” I managed. I pulled myself up onto the bed like I was summiting a mountain. “Is he… When did they… How did he know?” I’d seen my dad the month before and he was perfectly healthy, in great shape. Although, apparently not. There had been disaster lurking just below his mop of grey-speckled black hair.
“Last night he started slurring his words. Couldn’t remember what a cheeseburger was called. He ended up driving himself to emergency,” Trevor explained. I almost laughed. That was so my dad. On the brink of brain failure and still refusing to ask for help. “Maggie and I are here waiting for more news. We’ve called your grandparents but do you think you’ll be able to tell Madison?”
If I answered him or just hung up, I can’t remember. What I do know is that I called my sister 43 times. That’s not an exaggeration. The time difference between Los Angeles and Sydney—where she was taking her gap year—is brutal on most days but that day it felt like life or death. Which, in a way, it was. Each time I heard the incessant ringing of the long distance line, I told myself I would be as strong as whiskey on the rocks, my dad’s go-to drink. In between dialling and disappointment, I checked on Riley.
“You good, Rils?”
“Yeah,” she smiled, oblivious to my vulnerability. “Can I have some chocolate milk?”
“Coming right up!” I tried to smile back at her but it was wan at best. Like week-old farmers market flowers.
When Madison finally answered, five hours later, I broke down. I didn’t mean for it to happen; my mind wouldn’t cooperate with my mouth and my emotions came fizzing to the surface like shaken soda.
“Jesus Mira,” she yawned. “How many times did you call?” Madison laughed sleepily which told me that she didn’t have even an inkling of how serious this was about to be.
My blubbering cries came out stunted and hoarse. “Dad has brain cancer,” I sobbed, aware that if Riley heard me, my behaviour could be considered inappropriate. At least, for the workplace.
“What?”
“He’s in surgery right now.”
“What?” Madison repeated, more desperate this time.
“Trevor called me. He’s with Maggie at the hospital. Gram and Gramps are on their way.”
“I’m coming home.”
“I’ll go too.”
“What about your job? Riley needs you.”
“So does dad…” The thing neither of us were saying was that we didn’t have a clue if our dad still needed us or for how long he might.
“Should we tell mom?”
“Not yet. That’ll just cause more drama. Dad probably wouldn’t want her to know.”
“Right,” Madison agreed. “We’ll both go. I’m going to look at flights. I love you, Mira.”
I told her “I love you, Madly”—something I’d started saying to her when our parents split. It amazed me that even in a time like this, where my insides felt as pulverized as juiced oranges, I was still able to remember quips like “love you Madly” and not totally topple.
Two hours later, when Riley’s mom, Joanne, finally came home, I’d gotten her daughter into her pajamas and she was busy picking her bedtime books. With Riley distracted, I filled in Joanne.
“I’m sympathetic to you Mira, I really am. But I have patients. I don’t have time to babysit my daughter. That’s your job.” She shook her head at me in thinly veiled exasperation. I looked at Riley who was pretending to read her book while consuming every crumb of our calamitous conversation.
“I’m sorry…” Why I apologized for my father having his skull sliced open, I’ll never know. I’m a people pleaser, I suppose. Like I said, Riley was my job. I didn’t want to lose her almost as much as I didn’t want to lose my own father.
“How long will you be gone?”
“A week? Maybe two.” Joanne sighed. “Jesus. This really screws me. I’m going to have to make some calls.”
As I gathered my things, despondently tossing my phone and water bottle into my tote, I felt Riley wrap her arms around my thighs. “I love you Mira,” she said. Her oversized eyes looked at me with childlike innocence and honesty. I don’t think she comprehended that my world was imploding, but she knew enough to let me know she cared. People always say not to tell children who are your job that you love them, but in that moment I was weak. Flattened. Crushed by the same scalpel that was cutting open my father.
“Love you too, Rils,” I said to her. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”
“Okay.” She hugged me tighter. “Before you go, can you read my story?”
She handed me the book; one about a father hare showing his little one how much he loved him. I cried, I read, and I hoped against all odds that I’d get to tell my dad the same.

THE END

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