In the Hours After Midnight

The building liked to settle a little too much after midnight, which is why I was always sure to clock in to my shift in the power plant’s security office no later than 11:48 P.M. It gave me enough time to brace myself for another graveyard shift. The smell of oil and metal in the air. Another shitty coffee. Another night of listening to her voice.

I said goodnight to the swing-shift guard as he left, then sipped my black-tar coffee. It was the kind that the white collars in their white offices graciously supplied to us lesser folk, but they’d never drink it themselves. The bitter taste scraped down my throat like punishment.

Once I knew I was alone, and the digital clock on the wall clicked past midnight, I pulled out my phone. A poor habit I had developed was checking it constantly, even when I knew what I wouldn’t see.

No new messages.

Not surprising. I don’t receive much these days.

I swiped to my voicemail app and opened the folder titled “Em.” My thumb hovered the way it always did, a strange ritual pause before the hit. Then I played the oldest message, for what must have been at least the thousandth time.

“Hey, Dad!”

Em laughed at someone in the background; she always sounded so bright, careless, and painfully alive. I could almost see her long blonde hair swaying in front of me.

“Hey, so me and Ash need a ride… Can you come pick us up? We’re at Duncan’s. You know the address. I’d order an Uber but…”

The familiar pause. Then softer:

“I’d just feel better if it was you. I guess I’m lame for wanting my buffoon brain of a dad to come get me. Okay, anyway, call me back. I love you!”

A warmth punched me right beneath the ribs. I’d picked her up that night. I wasn’t given the opportunity many nights after that.

I replayed the message. And again. My breathing synced unconsciously to her pauses. The plant’s settling cracks synced to my breathing.

When 12:15 A.M. rolled around, it was time for my first security walk. I clipped my keys to my belt and started the routine shuffle into the dark and empty halls, pressing play on the next voicemail like I was lighting a cigarette I knew I shouldn’t have.

“Daaaaadd. Why don’t you ever answer your stupid phone? I know you’re like a million years old, but come on—it’s 2025. EVERYONE has their phones on them. Anyway, I know you’re probably busy but… call me back this time. Love you.”

That time, I hadn’t called her back. Her mom and I had gotten into another argument, worse than usual, and I couldn’t bring myself to talk to anyone, especially my Em. I couldn’t let her hear me as the weak man that I was that night, a man with shaking hands and a heavy heart.

I listened to that message again. And again. A sharp burn bloomed behind my sternum, the kind I’d grown used to inviting in, like a punishment I’d earned.

Two weeks later, the next voicemail arrived.

“Hey. I know we haven’t talked in a while and there’s…”

She hesitated, swallowing something heavy.

“There’s stuff going on between you and Mom, but I just want you to know I’m here. You can call me anytime. Honestly, my classes are in the middle of the day and I know you’re working nights now… so just call me before or after work, okay? Okay. Bye.”

This one always tightened my throat. Her patience. Her willingness to bridge the gap I kept widening despite my deepest wish not to; to reach for me while I kept shrinking into myself.

I replayed her words as I stepped between towering turbines, their groan vibrating through the concrete like a held-back sob. In my mouth, I tasted gas.

I had called her back after that one, thankfully. We talked about my new shift and its extra $2 per hour for night differential. She told me about her classes, her new friends, and whether she still saw Ash.

Then I screwed up.

She gently asked why I’d moved out. Where I was staying. She’d already heard something from her mom and wanted the truth.

But I couldn’t say it.

That her mother and I fought constantly once she wasn’t home.

That I was sleeping in a rundown motel across the street from the plant.

That I felt like a ghost occupying my own life.

I moved invisibly through dark hallways every night.

I went silent.

She got pissed.

I remember her saying, “If you aren’t going to talk to me or answer my voicemails or texts half the time, then just… stop bothering me at all,” before hanging up.

I didn’t have the emotional strength to call her back. Every night since, I’d write her a text I would never send. Something like:

“Hey kid, it’s dad. How’s school?”

But I never could send one. It was an unhealthy habit, along with my listening to her voice each night, to be sure, but it was the only way I could pretend she was still close.

The fourth voicemail was the hardest. I always replayed the earlier ones first, warming myself up just enough to bear the wound. Then I pressed play.

“Are you serious, Dad?”

Her voice was sharp, brittle.

“After our last talk, and you STILL don’t pick up? I know your schedule, idiot. Like, why don’t you just answer?”

A shaky breath followed. Unsure if it was hers or mine, echoing hers, I never knew. But tonight I heard something reverberate in the metal spaces around me. Then her tone softened, edges fraying:

“I talked to Mom. She told me what happened. Look, I’m not taking sides. I love both of you. It’s just… if you don’t put effort in, I can’t keep doing this alone. We both have to try.”

It ended. And like always, I felt myself sink, like stepping onto a missing stair in the dark. My heart jolted, then dropped, and my knees buckled.

I replayed it. Let it hurt. Let it burn. Then moved to the last one.

“Hey, Dad.”

Her voice was gentle, like tea cooled with iced lemonade.

“I hope you’re doing okay. I’m sorry I was so upset. I just don’t understand why you won’t let me in. Will you at least reply to my texts? Please.”

A tiny pause. She always waited here, like she thought I might finally pick up.

“Okay. Bye then.”

I didn’t reply to her again. I told myself it was depression. Drinking myself numb. Sleeping in that shitty motel. Never seeing daylight. But the truth was uglier: I didn’t want her to see me like this. I didn’t trust she’d still love me. How could she? Would she take pity on me? Would she be disappointed? Embarrassed? Or, worse, afraid of me?

Regardless, it was the biggest mistake of my life.

I looped all five messages in a row, the way I always did. By the time the fifth ended, the first started again. Her voice filled the empty corridors, threading through and synchronizing with the electric hum of generators and the tired metal bones of the plant.

A boring way to work, maybe.

But it was the only way I’d survived the last six months.

Delete

By 2:13 A.M., the plant had settled into that strange, uneasy quiet it only found in the deepest hours of the night. Turbines hummed like distant thunder. Pipes clicked like bones shifting under skin. Dull lights flickered and dimmed; shadows took their own forms.

I was halfway through my rounds, one hand on my flashlight, the other drifting toward my pocket the way addicts check for their bottle.

I didn’t expect anything.

I never did.

So when my phone buzzed, just once, sharp and sudden, I felt the tremor crawl all the way up my arm, and the air got cold.

I unlocked my phone.

New Voicemail.

Unknown Number.

My heart rattled against my ribs. Then I saw the timestamp, and something in me froze:

2:13 A.M. — tomorrow.

My throat closed like I’d swallowed a stone.

Impossible, I thought—

But my thumb was already hitting play.

“Dad… please answer this time.”

Em’s voice.

Older.

Tired.

Frayed at the edges.

There was a long, wrong pause after “Dad…” where I could hear her take a shaky breath. It was the kind you don’t want anyone to hear, the kind full of swallowed sadness.

But it was her.

I played it again, nearly dropping my phone. When I caught it, an electrical line overhead cracked loudly, scolding me for losing my grip and sending a vibration across my body.

With a firmer hold, I pressed play.

Again.

Again.

I memorized the silence after “Dad…”

Listened again.

Memorized the tiny exhale before “…time.”

My heartbeat synced to the rhythm of my finger tapping replay.

Again and again.

Something isn’t right here, I thought. I didn’t get the call… only the voicemail.

Reception issues?

No. Full bars.

Spoofed number?

No. Too personal. Too her.

Drunk call?

No. The timestamp wasn’t drunk, it was impossible.

So I called back.

Busy tone.

Then:

“We’re sorry, the number you tried to call is no longer in service.”

Click.

I hurried back toward the security office, phone in one hand, flashlight in the other. A low rumble in the concrete was syncing with my heartbeat. Turbines leaned over me like curious giants. Electrical lines hummed, as if they were waiting to yell. Metal grates clanged beneath my boots. Shadows warped, reaching like they wanted to listen with me.

Everything felt like it wanted to hear the message too.

I dropped into the chair at the security console. Since it was a company phone, I could access the call logs from the main system.

I searched.

Nothing.

No incoming calls at or near 2:13 A.M.

No logs of any kind.

No notifications have been received since my boss texted me hours earlier.

My stomach dropped. The room tilted. My ears rang and my vision swayed. Dizzy, I planted my feet and gripped the desk.

The voicemail folder labeled “Em” glowed back at me.

Then it happened.

I don’t know how.

I might never understand it.

The message, the one time-stamped for tomorrow, began to move.

It slid backward through the list of older messages, as if being dragged by invisible fingers.

Between the fourth and fifth.

Then gone.

Then between the third and fourth.

Then, climbing upward, tucking between the first and second.

As if it were searching for the place where it belonged in the chronology of my failures.

The dizziness had put me in a trance, to watch the voicemail dance.

Afraid that watching it any longer would freeze me in place forever, I pushed myself upright and leaned against the cold cinder-block wall, phone pressed to my chest.

The message echoed in my mind:

“Dad… please answer this time.”

A wave of shame slammed through me, slow and crushing. Heat spread through my face and stomach even as the cold wall hugged my spine. I held my breath, then allowed a shaky exhale, followed by a gasp.

The message made something undeniable:

I never answered her nighttime calls.

I always said “later.”

I always assumed she’d wait.

I always believed I’d have more time.

But “later” became weeks.

Weeks became months.

Months became silence.

Silence became the only way I knew her, only through replayed ghosts on my phone.

A lump rose in my throat, sharp enough to steal my breath. I slid down the wall to the screen-lit, concrete floor that reeked of oil. Everything felt more hollow now. A pressure had forced me down and made me unmovable. The shadows on the walls felt it too and lowered themselves to my level.

Then I realized:

Her last real words to me weren’t the fifth voicemail.

They were in the third:

“Then just… stop bothering me at all.”

And I had obeyed.

I hadn’t bothered her since.

Delete

The plant always felt like it had swallowed all its own sound by 3:07 A.M.. Not a hum. Not a shift. Not even a settling. Just a dense, watchful, quiet, cold draft pressing down and across every steel beam, like the whole place was waiting for me to decide what came next.

I stood in the corridor, phone in my hand… the impossible voicemail fluttering in my chest like a trapped bird.

“Dad… please answer this time.”

Her voice, older, worn, trembling, hung in the silence like something barely kept alive. I couldn’t stop hearing it. Couldn’t stop imagining her mouth shaping the words. Couldn’t let go of the ache in that too-long pause.

It was nothing like how she used to sound when she would call me from Ash’s or Duncan’s, asking for help or advice. My little girl, calling me an idiot in the most precious of ways.

I didn’t know why she said it.

Didn’t know how I’d received it.

Didn’t know what it meant.

All I knew was that, for the first time in months, something dangerously close to hope unfurled beneath my ribs.

A chance.

Or a warning.

I leaned back against the cold wall, started shaking, and let the truth hit.

I did want to be her father again.

My chest tightened like a truck pulling a knot tight.

And I was terrified it was too late.

My heart fluttered between slow and fast, a dull ache of shaky cold mixed with sharp hot jabs. I unlocked my phone and replayed all six voicemails. I didn’t fight the sixth one’s movement. It drifted between the second and third like it was carving its own place in the story.

Maybe Em is better off without me, I had already thought a hundred times.

But this time, that thought landed wrong.

It felt like a lie.

Because the sixth voicemail, impossible as it was, proved she wasn’t gone.

Proved she hadn’t vanished into some life where I didn’t exist.

Proved that somewhere, in some version of the world, she still reached for me.

My phone gently vibrated in my hands, and my heartbeat stabilized to its rhythm.

Maybe she needed me more than I realized.

Maybe I needed to get out of my own way and let her see me broken because at least that meant she could see me at all.

See that I hadn’t given up.

See that I loved her.

Before I could lose courage, I opened our old text thread. Messages she’d sent months ago glowed up at me.

I typed:

“Em, it’s been—”

Delete.

Try again.

“Hey, it’s Dad, I got your—”

Delete.

Tried again and again.

But none of them were right.

None were enough.

My hands shook. My body refused to type anything more.

It wanted me to call her.

My finger hovered over her name in my contacts, but it was trembling so badly I wasn’t sure I could successfully press her name. After the fifth attempt, it landed.

Her number lit up on the screen.

One more tap.

That’s all.

One more tap to break the pattern I’d lived in for half a year.

My heart thudded hot against my eardrums. I pulled out my earbuds. My thumb continued trembling, but as my breath stalled, so did the shaking.

I pressed the button.

The phone rang.

One ring.

My stomach clenched.

Two.

Please answer, Em.

Voicemail.

My chest collapsed.

Then, the strangest thing of all the things that happened that night.

The voicemail spoke back to me.

“Dad… please answer this time.”

The same message.

The sixth.

But now… it didn’t end.

A new line whispered:

“I’m still here, Dad. Try again.”

My heart sank, then surged upward so fast I felt dizzy. The corridor lights flickered at me, and the shadows moved in closer.

The line dropped.

But I knew now she was still there.

She wanted me to try again.

She wanted me to fight.

For her.

For us.

For the first time in months, I felt like her father again.

I didn’t care that it was past three in the morning.

If I didn’t call her now, I might never have the courage.

So I dialed again.

The ringback tone was shaky, like the connection itself was uncertain.

Once.

Twice.

I held my breath until my chest hurt.

Then—

“…Hello?”

Her voice.

My Em.

Sleepy.

Surprised.

Soft in a way I hadn’t heard since she was a little girl. When she crawled into my arms in my bed after her first nightmares about monsters in the attic.

I opened my mouth. Nothing came. My throat attempted to fill the emptiness where my voice should be and failed.

“Dad?” she said, her voice warmed, the first light after a long winter.

I cleared my throat, forced the words out:

“I’m… sorry for calling so late.”

It didn’t come out steady.

Halfway through, tears rolled down my cheeks.

By the time I said “late,” my voice cracked entirely.

And then I was sobbing. Quiet, desperate sobs I’d been holding back for months.

Behind me, the turbines produced a calm like distant wind.

The plant settled again, softer this time, exhaling with me.

Nothing was listening anymore.

Nothing was watching.

Nothing was whispering.

Nothing was pressure.

It was just me.

And her.

Finally on the same line again.

And for the first time in half a year, I believed morning might actually come.