Through broken, ragged sobs, she explained. Her car had broken down somewhere in the middle of nowhere, and she’d been desperately trying to reach her dad, except he’d recently changed his number. When she tried the old one instead, the contact still saved under “Dad” connected her straight to me, because that number had once belonged to Helen.
I stayed on the line and talked her through it, calm as I could manage, until help finally reached her. Then I sat alone in my car in the driveway and cried until the sun came up.
For a handful of heart-stopping seconds that night, it felt like Helen had found some impossible way back to me, if only long enough to remind me that love doesn’t actually disappear, no matter how far away the person carrying it has gone.
