The Missed Call

Doug Martin hadn’t been back to Bismarck, North Dakota in over a decade. After retiring from his job in Des Moines, he finally had the time, but time was already one step ahead of him.

He drove past his old high school, the ice cream shop that was now a vape store, and the Lutheran church that somehow still looked exactly the same. The town had changed, but not as much as he had. He had fewer friends now. Some had passed, others drifted, and a few he just never got around to calling.

Doug pulled up in front of a small white house on West Avenue B. It used to belong to Harold, his childhood best friend, college roommate, fishing buddy, and the guy he hadn’t spoken to since 2013. Doug had meant to call him. Meant to write. Meant to catch up. But there was always something: a work project, a grandkid’s soccer game, a leaky roof.

The house looked abandoned. The yard was overgrown, and the porch sagged. Doug knocked anyway. No answer. A neighbor walking by paused when she saw him.

“Are you looking for Harold?” she asked gently.

Doug nodded.

“He passed last winter. Cancer. Real quiet about it. Didn’t tell many folks. Just faded out.”

Doug thanked her and sat down on the porch steps. He stared at his hands. He could remember the last time Harold called. He was busy and told him he’d ring him back. He never did.

Later that evening, Doug sat in his motel room with the phone in his lap. He thought about Mary Ellen, his cousin in Fargo. He hadn’t seen her in years. He dialed her number.

She answered on the second ring. “Doug? Well, I’ll be… I thought you forgot about us up here.”

“I never forgot,” he said, his voice catching a little. “I just… forgot to call.”

They talked for an hour. Then he called Pete from high school, who still lived in Mandan. And the next day, Doug sat down at a café on Main Street with two old friends he hadn’t seen since the Reagan administration.

Sometimes it doesn’t take a grand gesture to reconnect. Sometimes all it takes is picking up the phone.