I knew the number by heart.
The receptionist, a woman named Deb who’s been there as long as we’ve been going, picked up on the second ring. I told her who I was. I told her Emma’s aids were unavailable for the week. I asked whether they had a loaner pair.
“Unavailable how?” Deb asked. “Lost? Broken? Is she all right?”
“She’s fine,” I said. “They’re just not with her. Somebody else has them, and I can’t get them back today.”
There was a short pause on the line.
Deb has been answering phones at a pediatric clinic for a very long time. I think she heard every single thing I didn’t say.
“We have loaners,” she said. “We keep a few pairs for when kids send theirs in for repair. Her test results are on file. Come now. Doctor can program them to her numbers while you wait.”
“I’m sixty miles out,” I said.
“Then you’d better start driving, honey,” Deb said. I could hear that she was smiling, a little. “We’ll be here.”
I hung up and went down the hall to Dr. Olson’s operatory. He was leaning over a patient with a mirror and a scaler.
I stood in the doorway in my fleece and said, “I need to leave for a few hours. It’s Emma.”
Dr. Olson is 62 and has been fixing teeth in our town since before I was born. He didn’t ask a single question. He just waved the little mirror toward the door.
“Go,” he said. “Kim can run the desk. Drive careful.”
Out in the waiting room, Mr. Peterson looked up from his magazine. “Everything okay with your girl?”
“It will be,” I said.
He gave me a thumbs-up.
I drove out past the grain elevator. Chad’s blue pickup was parked in its usual spot by the scale house. I didn’t slow down.
I took the two-lane west to the interstate and turned south toward Sioux Falls. The fields were bare and brown on both sides. Tractors were out here and there, working the ground with long clouds of dust trailing behind them.
It’s a drive I’ve made more times than I can count. Every audiology appointment. Every earmold fitting. Every time a battery door cracked or a tube split.
Emma and I used to play the license plate game on that road. She liked finding Minnesota plates best, because she said they looked friendly.
That morning, I drove it with both hands on the wheel and the radio off.
Somewhere around Madison, I pulled over at a gas station and called the woman who’d handled my divorce. Linda Haugen. Her office is above the hardware store on Main, and she charges $200 an hour and is worth every penny.
I didn’t want to start a war. I just wanted to know where I stood.
Laura Bennett writes about complicated family dynamics, difficult conversations, and the quiet moments that change everything. Her stories focus on real-life tensions — inheritance disputes, strained marriages, loyalty tests — and the strength people find when they finally speak up. She believes the smallest decisions often carry the biggest consequences.