Speakerphone

Sadie was at the kitchen table when he called.

A Tuesday in March, a bowl of chili going cold in front of her. Outside the window, the snow along the fence line was gray and crusted, the way it gets in South Dakota in March when winter has forgotten how to end.

Her phone buzzed on the table next to her bowl. She looked at the screen. Dad.

She smiled. She always smiles when he calls. Even after eleven years.

She put him on speaker, the way she always does.

She does that so I can hear. She’s done it since she was little. I used to think it was because she wanted me to be part of it. Now I think it’s because she didn’t want to be alone with whatever he was going to say.

“Hey, Dad.”

“Hey, kiddo.” Rory’s voice came out of the little speaker, crackly. He was in his truck. I could hear the heater fan going and the radio low in the background. “How’s school?”

“Fine. We had a sub in chemistry. She didn’t know anything.”

“That’s how you get to go home early,” Rory said. “Teach the sub something.”

Sadie laughed. A real laugh.

Then there was a pause on the line. Just a second too long.

“Listen, Sade,” he said. “About prom.”

She’d asked him two weeks before. On a Sunday, at the end of a weekend visit. Standing in his driveway in Mitchell with her backpack on her shoulder, while Tasha watched from the kitchen window.

Dad, can you help me with a dress for prom? It’s in April.

He’d said he’d think about it. He’d said he’d call.

Now he was calling.

“Kiddo, I can’t swing a dress this year,” he said. “Welding’s been slow since Christmas. I’m only getting three days a week at the shop. I’m sorry.”

Sadie looked down at her chili.

“That’s fine, Dad,” she said.

“I feel bad about it.”

“It’s fine, Dad,” she said again. “It’s totally fine. I’ll figure something out.”

She said it was fine twice.