Voice Memo
Voic e Memo
Gabby Tate
14 months, 2 weeks, 6 days after the accident
When I got home from school today, I was missing my dad so much. Some days it’s easy to recognize the thing that makes me sad. Other days it just feels like a pressure in my chest that doesn’t go away until after I let myself cry.
As soon as August dropped me off at the house on his way to run errands, I made a snack and went into the garage.
When I miss my mom and need to feel close to her, I wrap the wedding quilt at the end of their bed around me like I’m inside a cocoon. Her smell comforts me like nothing else. But when it’s my dad I’m missing, all I want to do is sit inside the Bronco. I have so many memories of being with him in that car. We drove to the ocean together so many times for a day of surfing and ice cream and tide pool combing.
Today, the tears came as soon as I saw the hole for the radio. My dad didn’t have a sound system in either of his vehicles. Not in his beat-up construction truck or in the Bronco he restored. A few weeks before we left for India, I teased him about not getting it fixed since he’d literally fixed everything else. But he told me it was because the silence reminded him to pray. I guess he used to think he didn’t have enough time for prayer when he first became a Christian, but then once he started adding up all the time he spent driving during the week, he realized he had plenty.
When I asked him what he prayed for most, he said us—me and August. My stomach hurt when he said my brother’s name that day because I knew my parents worried about him. I’d overheard their hushed conversations in th e kitchen more times than they knew about. I don’t know when August stopped working for the band he originally left home for, but I do know he went to work for some rich lady named Vanessa. I think she’s the real reason my brother stopped coming home for weekend visits, and I have a feeling she’s also the reason August told my mom he wasn’t coming to India with us.
On the last drive I took with my dad before we left for India, I asked if we could pray together on our way back from surfing. We prayed for my brother.
So today, I prayed for him again.