Saved Contacts

Donald looked up at the fixture. The bulb to the left was threatening to fail. He sighed and dropped his head to the phone, making a mental note to change it tomorrow. He’d made the same note for the past two weeks but never considered changing it until it flickered while eating dinner. He wasn’t eating dinner now; he was searching his contacts for the name of an old colleague whose name was mentioned in a conversation the other day. He can’t remember the name. He can’t even remember who he was talking to at the time. That’s been happening lately. He notices but doesn’t pay much attention to it.  

The phone's soft glow caused issues with his eyes, but like the light and his memory, he ignored it. His finger hovered over the screen, and he scrolled. He stopped. He scrolled. He stopped. He began to scroll again until he held his breath against his will. 

Greg. 

Donald sat up in his chair.  

Greg's number was still saved in his phone, even though he’d been gone a year now. They'd gone way back to high school, back to bad haircuts and big dreams. Donald could still hear his laugh, deep and boisterous, somehow louder than the crowd at their high school’s homecoming. The last time they’d hung out was like old times. Going back and forth over Greg bringing his daughter to a picnic the wives were throwing for the fellas. Donald tried to convince Greg that his daughter was too old to hang out with the old heads unless she really wanted to.  

Greg brought her along anyway. She spent most of the day on her phone, running back and forth to the cooler for the crew until she met some guy there with his family. Suddenly, Greg was ready to go. For those few hours, they felt like teenagers, telling the same stories and new lies, all resulting in Greg’s big laugh. But Greg was gone now—one of those early morning phone calls that shatters the quiet, his wife’s voice small on the other end. Heart attack. Gone just like that. 

Donald closed his eyes, remembering the last time they'd hugged, real tight, a half-laugh caught between them. Donald stared at the number, fighting the urge to delete it. Every now and then, he'd tap it just to see the screen flicker, reminding him that some piece of Greg was still sitting there. 

He shook his head and continued his search for the coworker whose name eluded him. Another name stopped him. 

Lisa. He swallowed. 

He and Lisa went back, too. Lisa had been his friend since those wild college days, when they were young, broke, and trying to figure it all out. They were friends, nothing more. She’d kept him sane through so much—through that mess with his first girlfriend, through the years when his mom was sick. She was a sister to him. Everybody knew it, even his ex-wife, who never really liked her but respected her. Lisa was the one who'd showed up with meals after his divorce, the one who’d dragged him out when he didn’t want to leave his house. Cancer took her two years ago. She’d fought hard, too, and told him not to feel sorry for her when he showed up at the hospital, standing there with flowers and a pitiful smile. The memory hit hard. He could hear her voice, clear as a bell, “You can cry Tin Man”. 

He laughed, thinking about The Wiz before breaking into tears. Donald swiped, trying to push past it. But now he was searching for something different. His heart needed to feel. 

And there it was. Nate. 

They met fresh out of college, both working their first real jobs, scraping together their checks to pay rent until they decided to move in together a few months later. Together, they figured out how to be men. Nate dated Lisa for a little while, but that ended quicker than it began. Nate had been by Donald’s side through his first and third weddings, the kids, the moves, promotions, and layoffs. Their hair grayed and receded together. Stomachs grew, and they even had similar pains in their hips. There was a little competition between them, but it was all good fun when it came to their children, each talking about their offspring as if they were legends in their own time. Their conversations near the end revolved around the way the world was going. 

2020. 

COVID swept through Nate’s house like a flood, taking him in a few days. His wife followed soon. Donald couldn’t process it at all. There was no funeral. No goodbye. Someone who’d been such a huge part of his life for so long was gone, just like that. The ache in his chest felt familiar. He looked at Nate’s name a bit longer, then began to scroll again. 

Tony. 

As great of a friend as Nate was, Tony was the brother Donald never had. Tony was the one he’d call up every day for no reason, just to talk trash about a game, catch a movie, or hustle into buying buffalo wings for dinner. He remembered when Tony first told him about the ALS diagnosis, his voice steady but softer than usual. Donald had just sat there, feeling the words settle into his bones. It wasn’t fair. Tony was the youngest of all of them, still with so much fire left. 

Donald tried to hold onto their routine, calling him daily, hoping to hear his familiar laugh or the voice he knew like his own, even as things got harder, even as the silence grew longer. His death was the freshest, just three months ago, and Donald was still in a fog, absence gnawing at the rawness in his chest. Tony’s number stared at him, daring him to call. He’d called twice since he passed. Celia, Tony’s widow, answered the first time. He heard an operator the next. He didn’t blame her. 

Donald leaned back in his chair, placing the phone face down on the table. He closed his eyes, and the kitchen filled with the voices of his friends. He started to open his eyes, but he could see them a bit – Greg laughing, Lisa’s lips turned up in judgment, Nate rubbing the head where an afro used to reside, and Tony leaning in like he wanted to tell him something only he could hear. 

He opened his eyes, and they were gone. He let his mind drift into the spaces they’d left in his life. He knew he could never delete those numbers, just as he knew his memories could never be erased. Suddenly, he remembered he was looking for Carl’s number. Carl was the kind of friend who was always just… there. Dependable, solid, the guy you called when your car broke down at 2 a.m. or when you needed someone to bail you out of a situation without asking questions. He was another work friend turned family. Just before he congratulated himself for recalling the name, he remembered that Carl died in a car accident last winter.  

Donald sighed and sat at the table for a long time, closing his eyes, hoping to hear and see the friends who weren’t coming back, but there was only silence.