A Long-Distance Phone Call

The Long-Distance Call
The last two months have felt like an eternity, Rosie thought, as she lay on her couch. The TV was on, but Rosie wasn’t really tuned in. All she ever felt like doing was sleeping. In her sleep, she felt safe and happy. Everything that had made up her world returned, like it was yesterday. They had loved to travel, and in many of her dreams, she found herself on exotic islands in the middle of nowhere, usually with no one but Jackson and herself. If not for the isolation, she’d half believe it was real. He would kiss her gently as he reapplied the suntan lotion to her back. Pure heavenly bliss.

Other times in her dreams, they would be at home. Jax would be reading the paper in his Lazy-Boy. It was his favorite place in the house to be. His glasses would be sliding down his nose as he would look up to see what Rosie was doing. “You are looking old with those glasses, Mister!” She’d exclaim as she would playfully come over and tousle his silver hair. “Old is a state of mind, not a look,” he’d reply thoughtfully, with a serious look on his face but a glint in his eyes. Oh, how she loved that man.

Why can’t my life be that way, she often wondered. She missed the things they did together. Even if she could have him back for just one day, she wouldn’t care what they did together. But, knowing that was never going to happen, she drove deeper into despair. Most of the time, she either camped out in the living room, like she was doing now, or she was in their room, under the covers, hiding from the real world. After the funeral, she’d returned to their room and closed all of the blinds on all of the windows, making it as dark as possible. She had not opened them since. Before, light flooded the upstairs when the door to their room was open. When they had bought the house so many years ago, the windows in that room let in so much light that they had naturally fallen in love with it. Now, only a few rays escaped through the closed slats.

Just then, her phone rang. The sudden high-pitched noise made her jump. The sound was almost foreign to her, since no one had tried to call her in several days. After Jackson had died, it seemed like her phone wouldn’t stop ringing. Everyone gave her their condolences, said they were so sorry for her loss, or any variation of the two sentiments. After his funeral, she felt she needed time alone to accept what had happened and to find a way to live her life without him. She had been with him for so many years, good times and bad, and it was just unbearable to think that she was going to have to finish the journey alone. Each call created a new fissure in her heart and she thought it would surely break completely if she continued to listen to her friends’ apologies. So she stopped answering the phone all together.

She let the machine pick up. She never changed the message. It still announced that Rosie and Jackson couldn’t take their call. She couldn’t bring herself to erase his name from the tape. Jackson, Jackson, was resonating in her head when the message began to play. “...call me at 555-2387. I wish you’d pick up.” It was a man’s voice, but she didn’t know who it was. She rewound the tape and replayed the message. The caller never spoke his name. He just told her that he could make her happy again. She dismissed the call as some crank caller and retired to her room for the rest of day.

Dinnertime came and went as darkness enveloped Rosie’s room. The only light was the glare from the TV. She knew she needed to get something to eat, but she just couldn’t will herself to get out of bed. When she felt hungry enough, she’d go fix something up, she decided.

She turned over and started flipping through channels on the TV. She had just dozed off when the phone began ringing again. She looked at the clock. It was 8:30pm. She couldn’t imagine who could be calling, but she let the machine get it again. Hunger and curiosity led her downstairs. She went into the kitchen and made a quick sandwich that she would nibble on until she was satisfied she’d had enough, and walked into the living room to the answering machine. There were 3 messages on the phone now. I must’ve slept longer than I thought, Rosie thought as she pressed the “Play” button on the machine. It was the same anonymous voice, with virtually the same message as before. Who does this guy think he is? This is ridiculous. Someone’s harassing me! She thought as she began unplugging the phones. That was it! She’d had it. Everyone needed to just leave her alone.

She stomped through the house, unplugging the 4 telephones that they had. A memory arose as she reached the phones on the second floor. Shortly after they bought the house, Jax and Rosie were painting a room upstairs when the phone began to ring. Jax went to their room, thinking there was a phone there.

“Where’s the phone, Rosie?” She could still hear the irritation in his voice.

“We’ve never had one in the bedroom Jax!” She yelled back and walked out of the room to see Jax go flying down the stairs. The phone stopped ringing by the time he reached it. He came back upstairs, and told her to clean up.

“We’re going to the store to buy more phones! This house is too big to only have one phone. I want to be able to answer the phone without getting a workout.” She thought he was funny when he was aggravated, but she stifled the laugh until he was in the shower.

She was standing in front of their bed, about to unplug one of the phones they had bought that day when she became aware again of what she was doing. She wasn’t laughing now. Something about the call was really grating on her nerves now. Must be one of Jackson’s friends playing a cruel joke on me, she thought.

“How can anyone THINK I can ever be happy again?!” Rosie yelled at her dresser mirror, seeing her pain staring back at her.

She threw the phone at the mirror and flinched as it shattered the glass. Feeling helpless, she fell to her knees and began to cry. The loneliness had taken its toll. She began cursing Jackson for coming into her life.

“You bastard!” She screamed at the bedroom suit they had picked out together.

“If I’d never met you, I’d never feel so alone and so unhappy now!”

But then she saw a picture of the two of them on the nightstand by their bed. It was one of her favorites. They had been to a charity ball that night and he was all dressed up in his tux. The anger melted into despair. She picked up the picture, looked at his square jaw line and beautiful blue eyes and said, “I had no choice. I could only fall in love with you. Why can’t you be here with me now?” She held the picture to her bosom as she crossed the room and shut off the light. She returned the picture to its rightful place on the nightstand and turned off the TV. She then curled into a tight ball beneath her covers and cried herself to sleep.

The room was pitch black. It was the first time in weeks that she had fallen asleep without the TV on, and she felt disoriented when she awoke around 3:30am. She could hear a phone ringing, but it didn’t sound nearby. It was very distant and not a tone that she had heard in the house in years. She carefully got out of bed and felt her way over to the door. She could still hear the ringing, so she followed the sound until it became louder. She never turned on a light, yet she never stubbed a toe, never tripped. The ringing was coming from the phone downstairs. She gently navigated the stairs, her feet moving as if they knew what she was doing more than she did herself. She reached the foot of the stairs and made it to phone, still in total darkness.


The machine had never picked up this time. The ringing wouldn’t stop, so she had to answer the phone.

She picked up the receiver and answered, “Hello?”

“I thought you’d never pick up, darling!” It was that voice again, only now she knew who it was. But it couldn’t be him!

“I don’t know whose idea of a mean trick this is, but I won’t have it!” Rosie told the aggressive caller. Who could make their voice sound like Jax? It was mean and down right cruel.

“Sweetheart, it’s not a trick. It’s me! Darling, remember that trip that we took to the French Riviera? You were horrified that it was a topless beach. You swore that you’d never go out there in anything less than your one-piece swimsuit. That was back in 1991 and the swimsuit was black and gold.”

No one had gone with them on that trip. There was no one there that they had made lasting friendships with who could possibly recall that story. She was speechless and was sure that she had finally lost her grip on reality.

“No, you’re not crazy, dear! I am really Jax and I want you to be happy. I miss you, too, but I’m in heaven now. You should see what I’ve seen here. Darling, don’t cry! I know you’re lonely, but I see you all the time. I can’t stand how you’ve withdrawn from everyone.”

He had read her mind. This was incredible! Her Jackson was on the phone. “Can I ever call you like you just called me?”

“Rosie, darling, you’ve been calling me every night since I left you. See, when you are asleep, I can hear your thoughts, and see your dreams. Why do you think you have enjoyed them so much?”

“I miss you so much. I thought time alone would help me heal, move on. But, I’m so lonely here without you. I need your help.”

“No, dear, you need to re-enter the world. My death has been painful for you, yes. If I could have it any other way, I would too. But it’s not negotiable. Someone bigger than all of us made that decision. Being alone is not the answer. You know that I am always with you. Or don’t you?”

No, I thought you were gone, Rosie thought. When Jax died, he left her. His body was placed in a casket and lowered into the ground. She was never very religious, and so death was the end as far as she knew. But, talking to him now, she knew he was still alive, if only in another realm.

“Well, I am here, always! I want to see that beautiful smile of yours again. I haven’t seen it in too long.”

Though it was dark, Rosie smiled, relishing in this joyful moment. She loved him so much. This call was everything to her. It must’ve been divine intervention that she could talk to him now.

“Ah, there’s my girl! Now, promise me that you will go forward.” Rosie was suddenly snapped back into reality with the awareness that he was about to hang up.

“Yes, it is hard, Rosie, but you must! Just think of this: every night, you have a direct line to my soul in your dreams. You can tell me all that has happened, all that you love. We can share our days together in your dreams. I want tomorrow to be more than a new day for you. Do the things in life that we used to talk about, I will still be there.”

The next thing Rosie knew, it was 7am and the sun was peeking around the corners of her blinds. She sat up in bed and stretched. She felt relaxed and refreshed this morning, not sad and depressed like she usually did. It’s too dark in here; she thought and stood to open the blinds. The light and colors that rushed into the room were amazing. It was the first time in two months that she had looked at the incredible view that they had outside their window. She could see the tree that they had planted the week that they had closed on the house. It was growing and was nearly up to the second floor. A blue jay sat on one of the top branches. Cars were leaving driveways up and down the street. People were leaving to take their children to school and to go to work. It then occurred to her; we never built that balcony off of the bedroom like we said we would. I’ll call Sandy today and see if she knows anyone who could help me out. It was time to move ahead, she decided. It was too early to call Sandy, but she was energized enough to go to her kitchen and make breakfast. She made bacon and eggs, with hash browns. She was starving, she realized. That was the day that Rosie moved on, free of grief and suffering and full of life.