Distant Howl

I squeezed my eyes shut again, hoping to finally fall asleep and stay that way for a while, when my cell phone bounced and vibrated next to me. I grabbed it so fast my wrist slammed into the corner of the cheap-as-hell pressed-laminate nightstand hard enough to swear like a crazy beggar who hasn't had a meal in days.

"Daira?" I hadn't even bothered to see if it was her before desperately calling out her name. But it wasn't like she had hordes of friends or family calling. It was literally just her and her alone that he was willingly socializing with.

I felt comfortable and smiled so much when her face appeared on the screen as the video chat was fully connected. I didn't even care that it was pixelated as hell. I was so happy to see her and hear about all the adventures I had already had on her journey, like, we did a few days ago.

"How long are you supposed to feel like an idiot about the silly jet lag?"

I laughed at the first thing she said and felt that hole in my chest start to fill up again, however the older I got the more I felt like it would never really fill up. It would never be completely full. When I thought that one day I would have my own family, a clean-faced husband to love me, little babies that looked just like us, it gave me a look of wholeness, but it also had a detachment. Maybe I'm just a mess inside of me that doesn't have any kind of hope.

It was like I was looking at this stupid ball of dough that totally represented my life, and I had no idea how to mold it the way it was supposed to be.

“You're asking the wrong girl. I haven't been out of town, let alone been on a plane." I smiled, laughing as the screen froze and lag, Daira's face turning into an odd expression before quickly speeding up as the connection went down. on going.

"That was incredibly rhetorical."

I rolled my eyes in good humor and Daira laughed.

She's only been there twenty-four hours. I'm sure it will take a few days for your body to acclimatize. I got to see a bit of her bed and breakfast room as she sat up in bed. I wanted to order a little video tour right now, eager to live vicariously through her and with her.

"Yeah, you're probably right. I fell as soon as I got here and woke up twelve hours later with a completely dark room and an excruciating lower back cramp from not moving for hours on end.”

"Did you at least feel better?"

she snorted. "No, not at all. I felt like complete shit and was so groggy. Then I couldn't sleep until the sun started to come up, at which point I went back to sleep and woke up with just enough time to spend an hour in the public records office. Before the old lady who worked at the front desk threw me out of there.”

She was moving around a lot and he had to assume that she was getting ready for more exploring. With her six hours ahead of me, she'd probably already done so many exciting things while I was here, lying in bed and staring up at the yellow-tinged ceiling.

"So it wasn't the most productive day, but I did find out a bit, which is exciting and better than nothing."

I felt a genuine happiness and euphoria fill me. I sat up straighter on the bed and smiled. ``That's fantastic! So, exactly... what did you discover?''

I could see that she was just as exhausted as I felt and, hell, she probably looked too.

“Well, when I say that I found quite a bit, it was basically just the birth records of my grandparents and my mother. They were residents here and had no family apart from each other." He got this strange expression on his face from her, and he could practically see her turning over in her head what he had just said about her. "That's weird, right? Like just the three of them. No cousins. Neither necessities nor nephews nor brothers or anything like that.’’

I shrugged and wished I was there next to her and could have been some kind of help to make her feel better. However, I could see the deflation of her in her face from her. “I think that might be normal under the circumstances,” I said, hoping to show him some kind of silver lining that might make things seem less hopeless. “I mean, look at me. Other than my broken mother, I have no one else in the world but you." At least my words brought a small, albeit sad-looking, smile to her face.

"You'll always have me". I smiled after she spoke. “But needless to say, I didn't find out much more than that. And since tomorrow is Sunday, they won't be open. And there are so many possible matches that you could get if you had enough time to go through all the documents and files.”

I shifted on the mattress, letting my back slide down to be flush with the bed, my head pounding something ferocious from lack of sleep and the full night I'd had. I held the phone against my chest and wrinkled my nose.

"My God, what a horror, this angle makes me have three chins," I muttered and sat back down, my head pounding once more and cursing myself. I held the phone away from me, but it didn't help the chin party I was currently having. I finally said, "Fuck it," and let the phone sit on my chest. I focused on Daira again and smiled. "Before you say it, because I can see it in your face, yes I'm listening, and yes I heard everything."

She smiled widely, and the image of her on the phone shook slightly as she settled back on the bed.