The People Who Show Up Tired Are the Ones Holding Us Together

I had a refrigerated load headed north.

Eggs, produce, boxed milk, a whole trailer full of ordinary things that become very important the minute they don’t arrive.

The highway was still blue-black when I merged on.

Coffee in the cup holder.

Dashboard lights low.

The radio off.

I like to start in silence.

It reminds me who I am before everybody else’s noise gets in.

The phone buzzed at my first red light off the county road.

I ignored it.

Buzzed again at the truck entrance to the interstate.

Ignored that too.

By the time I stopped for fuel two hours later, there were six missed calls.

Three from Emma.

One from Principal Dawes.

One from a number I didn’t know.

One from Mr. Ortega, the shop teacher.

I called Emma first.

She picked up on the first ring.

“Mom.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah.”

She sounded too fast.

Too bright.

The way people sound when they are trying to outrun the tremble in themselves.