“Happy Birthday, Ma.”

The phone had rung ten times before she’d picked up. “Oh, hi. Hang on a sec…”

Cell on the counter, she cooed at Herman, “Ah, sweet boy… Do you want a widdle tweat?”

It wasn’t a second before she returned, or a minute. It was a lifetime.

Laura Levin lives in New York’s Hudson Valley where she teaches writing as an adjunct professor. She has an MA from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University.