Call from an unknown number

Rowan Mercer was halfway through a meeting in his Nashville office when his phone lit up with an unknown number, and because he almost let it ring, assuming it was just another vendor trying to reach him before lunch, he would remember for the rest of his life the strange, mundane hesitation that preceded the moment everything changed.

He replied distractedly,  “Hello?”

For a second there was only crackling, a slight rustling of movement, then the voice of a little boy, choked with fear and exhaustion, came through the loudspeaker.

“Dad?”

Rowan was already on his feet before he’d even fully understood what he was hearing.  “Micah? Why are you calling me from another phone? What happened?”

The boy sniffed loudly, trying to sound brave like children who have already shown too much courage.  “Dad, Elsie can’t wake up. She keeps sleeping and she’s very hot. Mom isn’t here. We have nothing left to eat.”

The conference room, the spreadsheets on the screen, the people around the table waiting for him to say something useful—all of it vanished from Rowan’s mind in an instant. His chair creaked so violently backward that one of his colleagues jumped, but Rowan didn’t explain, didn’t apologize, didn’t even grab his jacket. He grabbed his keys and phone and ran for the elevator, already dialing Delaney’s number.

Directly to voicemail.

He recalled.

Voicemail.

Again.

Nothing.

When he arrived at the underground parking garage of his building, his pulse was pounding so hard his hands were shaking on the steering wheel. Delaney had told him earlier in the week that she was taking the kids to a friend’s lakeside cabin where the cell service was unreliable. Since they were in the middle of one of their carefully negotiated custody weeks, and their co-parenting, though strained, had remained manageable for months, he had believed her. Now, as he sped through the downtown traffic toward his rental house in East Nashville, all he could hear was Micah’s thin voice saying there was nothing left to eat.

He called Delaney one last time and ran into the same wall.