The Weekday One Hundred

I’d know that husky voice anywhere. She hadn’t been gone long.

“Who you talking to, Sweetie?” I asked.

My seven-year-old sat at the edge of the couch, the old-fashioned receiver weighing heavy in her lap.

“Nana,” she answered cheerfully.

My mother who passed away last year? Couldn’t be.

I grabbed the phone and put it to my ear. Only static now.

I looked down at my kid, her face beaming with joy.

“We talk every Friday. She’s my best friend.”

I never understood why we kept paying to have this antiquated machine around the house.

I just found my reason.