THE FERRY

Hey I understand you’re angry, the first message said. A man’s voice, probably a man my age. I would be angry, too. I know I messed up. I know it’s not the first time I messed up. I have been dealing with a lot.

- BEN LERNER

I know you’re dealing with a lot, too, it’s not an excuse, but I just want to tell you how I see it, and how I can make it right. And most of all I want to listen. To what you want to say and to what you need from me. To make it right. We’ve come too far. I’m sorry, call me back, O.K.?

The number, which was not in my contacts, had appeared while I was walking Ava to the school bus. I’d never recorded a voice-mail greeting and I guess the person he meant to call hadn’t either. The area code was the same as ours. We were stomping lanternflies to death every few yards, the bright red of their hind wings vivid against the pavement’s gray. After I left Ava, I listened to the message—I’d put my earbuds in—several times as I walked to the train. On the corner of Church and McDonald, before I descended to the F, I encountered a cracked but intact full-length mirror somebody had set beside the curb, first taping a piece of paper to the glass that read: “Still works.” Underground, when I refilled my MetroCard, the machine asked me if I wanted to add value or add time. It was too much, too beautiful: the bright red, the curbed cracked mirror, the deepest question in the world.