Best medicine

Every time the phone rings, I hold my breath a little. The air catches somewhere between my lungs and my throat. My heart beats faster.

Phone calls after prime time are the most affecting.

I always imagine the worst: An ending for someone, or at least the beginning of the end. 

Maybe it will start with a trip to a hospital. My heel rises and falls against the flooring to the rhythm of my own uncertainty. Will I be the one to decide if it will be-transportation-by-ambulance or if whatever it is that ails them can wait the 20 minutes until I get there?

Will I make the right choice?

The phone is still ringing.

I'm always ahead of myself. Mind racing with worst-case-scenarios until I lift the receiver.

A long pause between my tepid "hello" and some sunny voice -- the current ruse of  I'm-not-trying-to-sell-you-anything sales callers -- that isn't even human means I can hang up with neither pomp nor politeness.

I will inhale deeply and relax.

If there is an immediate voice at the other end of the line, it most likely belongs to my sister or my father. Sometimes both, as they live together and will trade off the handset like a game of hot potato. 

"Talk to him," she'll say with the exasperation of being able to move the stone wall in her midst. 

"Oh hi," he says. "What's up?"

"Sis tells me she's worried about you."

 All of us connected now, old school-like with tangled, tethered cords and modest fees for long distance despite our geographical locations separated by only 11 miles.

"Aw ... I'm fine. But I have this pain in my side. I didn't notice it until you left earlier today. Now it's just excruciating when I stand up and walk around. It doesn't hurt at all when I sit down, though."

He sounds a might anxious. 

"It doesn't sound too serious. Maybe you just pulled something."

I'm trying to sound cool.

For a moment, I wish caller ID could run the data for me. Check my work. Push a chyron of questions to ask so I could be sure my recommendation -- two extra-strength acetaminophen tablets and relaxing in a chair for the evening -- wouldn't amount to filial malpractice. 

But I don't have caller ID, and furthermore, I don't think I'd like a service that could cooly diagnose illnesses with ease of Dr. Google MD. I definitely wouldn't be about to fight my way out of that spiraling rabbit hole.

I trust the internets less than I trust myself. 

 All I can do is hang up and wait for the next phone call.

Which will happen in about 30 minutes ... 

Ring-ring ring-ring?

It's my dad.

"Hey, I gotta tell you something. I found a tick on the dog. It took me about a half hour to get it off of her. It was still alive! So as I was taking it outside, you won't believe what happened ...

"That pain in my side just disappeared."

The dam that had held back my breath finally broke, releasing with it a flood of laughter, the best medicine of all.