Wake Up Call

The highway glimmers with light rain, the dark evening’s street lights reflecting in the ripples. The car’s heater breaks the soundless drive. The restaurant was a busy shift tonight, and Dave had worked an event evening for a local wedding party. Whilst he drove the long highway towards home, his phone rang with a familiar ringtone that signaled it was his son calling, Avery.

He reached blindly into the glove compartment, retrieving the ringing device and answered it, putting it on speaker. 

     “Hey,” He greeted.

     “Hi Dad,” His son’s voice chirped, “How was your evening, with the events and all, I’m sure it was busy, that’s what you tell me at least.” It was an easy tradition between the two that they would call each other each night during his drive home. It connected them when they wouldn’t see each other for long periods of time, Avery having school and leaving before him whilst he left afternoons to late nights. 

     “Yes, it was a lengthy night, especially with this loud group,” He chuckled, musing himself with the memory. That didn’t last long however as his laughter wasn’t mutually shared. Silence lingered on the other side of the phone. 

     “Did anything happen at school today?” He asked, changing the subject and wondering if something was wrong. 

     “Not really no,” Avery responded after a few beats. His son was quiet tonight, every night seemed quiet now. But he knew that to Avery, whenever he got home, it was even quieter, especially with his mother in the hospital. She had been emitted barely a month ago, left in fatal conditions from a car accident.  She’d been driving in a brutal storm, rain and wind, and with a moment’s distraction, she spun off into another vehicle. 

     “I’m going to go now, when are you going to be home?” Avery asked, muffled noises coming through the speaker, indicating movement on the other side of the line. He sighs, telling him that he can’t guarantee when exactly but he will be there soon, and hangs up after they trade “goodbyes”. 

     Entering the house, it was dark. Avery must’ve turned out all the lights and headed to bed. At home it truly was quiet, only the slight creaking of the weeping willow tree and the whistling wind as it weaved through the cracked open window. A sigh escapes his lips, kicking off his shoes and putting his bags on the crowded kitchen table. The two had struggled with household duties ever since the accident, never seeming to get to it and allowing it to creep into their lives like molasses. When he trudges toward his bedroom, the hallway is lit up by the moon pouring out of Avery’s room. Maybe after all, his son had been waiting for him to come home. 

He cranes his head around the doorframe soundlessly, in case Avery had fallen asleep with the door open. However when he glanced in, his small frame was sitting on his bed, next to the door, looking into the window across the room. 

     “Hey buddy, I know I just got home, but you should be asleep by now, with school early and all.” He said, his voice intruding the peaceful silence that had settled. Avery turns to him then, and in a small voice that’s soft enough to blend in with the quiet atmosphere, he says,

     “I don’t have school tomorrow.” It was a small sentence enough to be simply informational, however, he already knew that. He forgot. It was only this morning that Avery informed him, hoping to spend the day at work and then go visit Lynn, his mother. If only they could turn back time, could it all be back to normal. A normal, happy, family.

     “Right, I’m sorry,” He apologized, and sat onto the bed next to him. 

     “How was your mother tonight?” He gently asked, while laying a hand onto his shoulder. Something he did know was that his son visited his mother every visiting hour he had available. Avery didn’t answer, instead, turning to look at him. 

     “Can you stay home tomorrow?” Avery asks, voice hopeful and eyes begging. 

Dave takes a deep breath, contemplating this suggestion, before nodding. He nods because Avery never asks for a lot, and it’s always meaningful when he does. It also warms his heart when he sees his son’s expression transform into something more alive and content.

     “I can’t guarantee, but I can try,” He says, smiling down at Avery. 

     “I want you to see mom, you always say you’ll see her with me but by then, it’s too late into visiting hours,” Avery states, trying to remind him of another reason he needs to stay. With some guilt and some shame, Dave then rises from his son’s bed, the moon now higher in the sky and no longer lighting up the room. He kisses his son’s forehead, mutters a “goodnight” and leaves the room, closing the door behind him, not knowing what else to do or say. 

By morning, Avery leaves for work and soonly following,  Dave also goes to work. He didn’t lie when he said he couldn’t guarantee it, but he did lie when he said he would try. He planned on working a short shift at the restaurant and then coming home shortly before Avery. He didn’t plan the clock’s hands to waltz around each other until it was late and his hands were full of drinks. 

     “I heard the radio say it was going to be a crazy storm out there, eh?” A hoarse guy’s voice comments to him as he walks by the bar. 

     “Really, how bad is it now?” Dave asked, swiftly moving to a nearby table to hand out the beverages before returning to the man at the bar.

     “Nothin’ but a few pellets, there’s surely to be lightning ‘fore the thunda’ in a few!” The guy’s voice slurs slightly as he gestures to the windows. To Dave’s horror, the sky is dark, it has been hours since he started his shift and his mind hangs with a backdrop of panic. He answers with a hesitant nod before making his way quickly towards the kitchen.

The engine starts with a roaring hum, and the vehicle’s headlights flicker to life. Dave pulls onto the busy highway, and the dark sky cracks open with a root of lightning. The radio static sputters for a few minutes before tuning into the local radio station.

    “Growing storms hitting the eastern highways, be careful!” A man’s voice on the radio warns. 

    “Thank you for telling me, now tell me something I don’t know!” Dave’s voice bellows hoarsely, his frustration displayed in the way his knuckles round into fists tightly on the steering wheel and his eyes brim with a thin layer of tears. 

    “You should be seeing some lightning and thunder come down with some heavy rain, the roads may seem slippery-” The radio sputters again into a thick sound of static. In anger, Dave takes a moment to slam a hand into the volume button, turning off the radio and removing his hands from the steering wheel to wipe at his eyes rapidly. When Dave’s eyes clear, he suddenly throws his hands onto the steering wheel, swinging it to the right sharply with a gasp as he drifts into the opposite lane. With a sigh of relief, he strongly keeps his hands secured driving. 

He hears a ringing, his phone, underneath his seat. He curses under his breath, remembering the clunk! of his phone dropping below him. The rain falls even heavier now, and thunder cackles above. Dave reaches for his phone, which now lays by his feet, and struggles to get a grip on the device. To get closer, he ducks his head underneath the wheel, and his fingers grab hold of the phone that’s now stopped ringing. When his head shoots up from behind a wheel, there are now two blaring lights speeding in his direction, growing. Dave’s hands clutch the wheel desperately, eyes squeezed shut as the sound of pounding rain turns into the pounding of his panicking heart. He remembers the crash that resulted in Lynn’s hospitalization, he remembers how the sound of ringing exploded from his ears and how the lights came towards them like missiles. The sounds of screams, coming from both Lynn and himself, and now it was only him screaming. The blaring lights that barrel towards them turn out just as he turns out, spinning on a patch of ice, he flies around like a hastily unraveling spool of fallen thread. When his vehicle halts to a stop in the middle of the highway, cars slow down to drive around him and the other car is spun out stopped a couple meters away. Dave then understands that something must’ve hit the stereo’s volume as there's a distinct beeping somewhere, melodic like… 

The ringing in his ears fades away and the beeping stays consistent, Dave blinks away the dreamy state and starts fumbling when he understands that the beeping is his phone ringing.

     “Dad!” Avery’s voice comes clear into the fog of Dave’s mind. I’ll just focus on his voice… Dave thinks subconsciously. He takes a deep breath, further clearing his mind.

     “Avery…” He manages, his voice filtered with a heavy exhaustion he wasn’t aware of before.

Cars slowly continue to make their way around the two, some beeping. 

    “Did you hear the news? Did they call you?” Avery asks and Dave then recognizes the mood of his son’s tone, congested and whiney.   

    “I didn’t, no,” He answers, resting his elbows on the steering wheel, ignoring how the other car slowly drives off, freely, neglecting his position. He sighs.

     “Mom didn’t make the night..” His son’s voice comes out high pitched and there’s a freeze in time, Dave tenses, full of sudden shame, guilt, and grief at this news. He forces himself to swallow down the news, but it crawls up and sits in his throat. It was just a few minutes ago that Avery almost lost both his parents, one from a car accident and one from reckless decision making. Guilt gnaws his bones dry, spitting out the taste of nasty regret in his guts. 

     “I’m so sorry, buddy..” Dave whispers to the sobbing figure on the other side of the line. He doesn’t know what he’s sorry for, whether it’s for being a coward too scared to visit his dying wife, dead wife now, or for being irrationally crazy and almost getting himself killed. 

     “Daddy?” The small voice asks on the line. Dave turns his attention to the phone, caressing it as though his son was with him this very moment physically. 

     “Yes, Avery?” Dave asks, ready to fulfill his son's every need. How could he even do that if he couldn’t even be there for him when he needed him most? For weeks, Avery had simply asked his father to be there for him to visit Lynn when she needed him as well and he couldn’t move past his fear of confronting the truth, now Dave needed to choose carefully. 

     “Please come home..” Avery sniffles, and you can hear the phone being put down onto a hard surface. His fragile voice has Dave in pieces, because it’s Avery, and he didn’t do anything wrong, hell, he did everything perfectly. He juggled caring for his family, working, going to school, and being the most perfect kid any parent could ask for. Now Avery needed him, he only had him, and he will be there.

    “I will be there, I promise,” Dave swears, clearing the emotions out of his throat that choke him. He checks his rearview mirror, checking that the roads are cleared before lightly pressing the gas and starting his way home cautiously. Through the darkness, rain, lighting and thunder, he will make it home safely to his waiting son, and he won’t make the same mistake as last time. They can't go back in time. They can't stop the passing of Lynn, the regretful paths taken. This was his wake-up call.