I Called My Brother the Second Before He Fell

I was at my desk on an ordinary afternoon when a wave of dread came over me so suddenly and so physically that I stood up. My heart was pounding. My mouth went dry. It was not a thought, it was a certainty, a cold sureness that something was wrong with my brother, right now.

We are close but we are not phone-every-day close, and there was no reason for it. But the feeling was so overwhelming that I picked up my phone and called him, standing at my desk, not even sure what I would say.

He answered on the second ring, and the first sound I heard was not hello. It was a shout, a scrape, and a heavy crash. He had been at the very top of a tall ladder, cleaning the gutters at the back of his house, alone, phone in his pocket. My call had buzzed against his leg, he had shifted to reach for it, the ladder had gone out from under him, and he had fallen.

He was hurt. A broken wrist, a badly wrenched shoulder, cuts. But he was conscious, and he was on the phone, with me, at the exact second it happened, so that I could keep him talking, keep him from moving wrong, and call for the ambulance that reached him within minutes. He lives alone. If I had not called, he would have been lying in his back garden, hurt and unheard, for who knows how long.

He asked me later why I called right then, out of the blue, at that precise moment. I did not have an answer that made sense. I just knew, the way you know the floor is there before you step. I do not question the feeling anymore. When it comes, I pick up the phone.