For illustration purposes only
My whole body trembled. For a split second… just one impossibly fragile moment… I felt as if Helen were reaching out to me from somewhere I couldn’t reach.
With trembling hands I called the number.
The young woman immediately responded, crying. “Daddy? Daddy, where are you? Please, I need help…”
I swallowed. “I’m not your father,” I said gently. “Who are you trying to reach?”
Through tears, she explained that her car had broken down in the middle of nowhere. She desperately tried to call her dad—but he had recently changed his number. When she tried calling the old one, the contact listed as “Dad”—was me. Because that number used to belong to Helen.
I comforted her, waited on the line until help arrived. Then I sat in the car and cried until the sun came up.
For a few seconds that night, I felt like Helen had found her way back to me—if only long enough to remind me that love never truly disappears.
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