The phone rang at 2:17 AM. Marcus looked up from his paperback—some Louis L'Amour thing about a gunfighter with a heart of gold—and stared at the desk phone. Nobody called the security desk at the data center. Especially not at this hour.
He picked up on the fourth ring.
"Hello?"
"Meera? Oh, thank God. I've been trying to reach you for days."
The woman's voice had an accent. Indian, maybe. She sounded older. Tired.
"This isn't Meera," Marcus said. "You've got the wrong number."
"What? But I dialed—" A pause. "Oh. Oh, I'm sorry. I must have... The country code. I always mess up the country code."
"It's alright."
"I'm very sorry to bother you."
"No bother. I'm at work."
"At two in the morning?"
"Security guard. Night shift."
"Oh." Another pause. "Well. I'm sorry again."
"Really, it's fine. Hope you reach your daughter."
"My daughter. Yes. Thank you."
She hung up. Marcus went back to his book, but he'd lost his place. He dog-eared the page and walked his rounds through the humming rows of servers. The data center was the size of an airplane hangar, filled with nothing but black metal cabinets and the constant white noise of cooling systems. He'd been doing this job for two years now, ever since his back gave out on the construction site. Four nights a week, seven PM to seven AM, watching over machines that watched over themselves.
The next night, the phone rang again. 2:17 AM.
"It's you again," the woman said when he answered. "I know it's you. I can tell by how you say hello."
"You dialed wrong again?"
"I don't know what's wrong with me. I had it written down correctly this time."
"Maybe you need glasses."
"I have glasses. Three pairs. I lose them constantly." She laughed, but it sounded forced. "I'm disturbing your work."
"Not really. Just sitting here."
"What do you guard? If you don't mind my asking."
"Computer servers. Data center. Basically, I make sure the building doesn't catch fire and homeless people don't break in. Though we're forty miles from the nearest town, so that second part isn't much of a concern."
"Sounds lonely."
"It is what it is."
"I should let you go."
"You can talk if you want. I'm not doing anything."
So she did. She told him her name was Priya. She lived in Toronto. She was trying to call her daughter in Seattle, but they hadn't spoken in six months. There'd been a fight about selling the house after Priya's husband died.
"She thinks I'm being stubborn. Maybe I am. But it's my house. Thirty-seven years in that house."
Marcus found himself telling her about Montana. How you could see every star on clear nights. How the mountains looked purple at sunset. How quiet it got in winter when the snow muffled everything.
"I should go," she said finally. "Thank you for listening."
"No problem."
The third night, she called again. This time, Marcus was pretty sure it wasn't an accident.
"I made dal tonight," she said without preamble. "Too much for one person. I always do that. Cook like I'm still feeding a family."
"I had a gas station burrito."
"That's not food."
"It's food adjacent."
She laughed. A real laugh this time.
They talked for an hour. She told him about teaching chemistry for thirty years. How she'd loved the periodic table, the logic of it, everything in its place. He told her about working construction, how he'd liked building things until a fall from a scaffold compressed two discs in his lower back.
"Now I babysit computers," he said.
"Now I talk to walls," she said.
The calls became regular. Every night at 2:17 AM, the phone would ring. Marcus started bringing better food—sandwiches he'd make at home, soup in a thermos. Priya would describe what she'd cooked in elaborate detail. Lamb biryani. Palak paneer. Things he'd never heard of but could almost taste through her descriptions.
She talked about her husband, Raj. A quiet man who'd worked as an engineer. How he'd died in his sleep one Tuesday night, and she'd made him coffee the next morning before realizing he was gone.
"Three years ago last month," she said. "You'd think it would get easier."
Marcus told her about his mother. The stroke that took her speech first, then everything else.
"I found her in the kitchen," he said. "She was trying to make breakfast. Had the pan on the stove but forgot to turn it on. Just stood there, confused. I should have known then."
"You couldn't have known."
"I could have paid better attention."
They never talked about meeting. Never exchanged photos or last names or email addresses. The phone calls existed in their own space, separate from everything else. Marcus didn't even have Priya's number—she always called him.
Dale, his supervisor, noticed the change.
"You're looking better," he said during his weekly check-in. "Less like death warmed over."
"Thanks, I guess."
"You seeing someone?"
"No."
"You sure? You're showering more regular."
"Jesus, Dale."
But it was true. Marcus had started taking better care of himself. Shaved most days. Did laundry when the hamper got full instead of when he ran out of clean clothes. Even bought vegetables at the grocery store, though he wasn't sure what to do with most of them.
One night in February, Priya talked about her daughter.
"We were so close when she was young. She'd help me in the kitchen, do her homework at the table while I cooked. Then she became a teenager and everything changed. Everything I did was wrong. The food I made, the clothes I wore, the way I talked."
"Kids grow up."
"Yes. But sometimes they grow away." She was quiet for a moment. "I thought when she had children of her own, she'd understand. But she says she won't make the same mistakes I did. Won't put that pressure on her kids."
"What pressure?"
"To be perfect. To never disappoint. To carry the weight of every sacrifice." Priya sighed. "Maybe she's right. Maybe I did ask too much."
"You did your best."
"Did I? Or did I just do what I knew?"
Marcus didn't have an answer for that.
March came in cold. The data center's heating system struggled, and Marcus wore two jackets during his shifts. Priya had a cold that lingered for weeks.
"You should see a doctor," he told her.
"I'm fine. It's just a cough."
But he could hear her wheezing between words.
"Priya."
"Don't mother me. I had enough of that from Meera before we stopped talking."
"She's worried about you."
"If she's so worried, she knows where I live."
The coughing got worse. Some nights, she could barely talk. Marcus would fill the silence, telling her stories from the paperbacks he read. Cowboys and gunfights and desert towns that probably never existed.
"You should write these down," she said once.
"I'm not a writer."
"You're a storyteller. That's the important part."
One night—a Tuesday—the phone didn't ring. Marcus watched the clock: 2:17, 2:18, 2:19. By 2:30, he was pacing. By 3:00, he was worried. She'd never missed a call. Not once in four months.
Wednesday night: nothing.
Thursday: silence.
By Friday, Marcus was coming apart. He'd grown dependent on those calls without realizing it. They were the anchor of his nights, the thing that made the long hours bearable. Without Priya's voice, the data center felt like a tomb.
He tried Information but didn't know her last name. Searched online for retired chemistry teachers in Toronto named Priya, but there were dozens. Called hospitals, but they wouldn't give out patient information.
Dale found him on Saturday night, sitting at the security desk with his head in his hands.
"You look like shit."
"Thanks."
"What's wrong with you?"
Marcus almost didn't tell him. But the weight of not knowing was crushing him.
"There's this woman," he started.
Dale listened without interrupting, which was unusual for him. When Marcus finished, Dale was quiet for a long moment.
"You got her number?"
"No. She always called me."
"But the phone here, it's got caller ID."
Marcus felt stupid. Of course it did. He scrolled back through the call history until he found it. The same number, over and over. A Toronto area code.
"Call her," Dale said.
"What if something happened? What if she's—"
"Then you'll know. Not knowing is worse."
Dale left. Marcus stared at the number for an hour before dialing.
A young woman answered. "Hello?"
"Is Priya there?"
"Who is this?"
"My name is Marcus. I'm... a friend. We talk on the phone."
"The security guard? Mom mentioned you." The woman's voice softened. "She's in the hospital. Pneumonia. She's been asking for you, but we didn't know how to reach you."
"Is she okay?"
"She's stable. Tired. But stable." A pause. "I'm Meera. Her daughter."
"The one in Seattle."
"Yes. I flew in when the neighbor called. Found her on the bathroom floor." Her voice cracked. "She'd been there for hours."
Marcus closed his eyes. "Can I... Would it be alright if I talked to her?"
"She's sleeping now. But I could have her call you when she wakes up?"
"Yeah. Please. Tell her... Tell her I'm here. Whenever she wants to talk."
"I will."
Marcus gave her his cell number. The rest of his shift crawled by. He couldn't focus on his book, couldn't eat the sandwich he'd brought. Just walked the rows of servers, listening to their endless hum.
His phone rang the next afternoon. He was home, trying to sleep, but he answered immediately.
"Marcus?" Priya's voice was weak, raspy.
"Hey there."
"I'm sorry I worried you."
"Don't be sorry. Just get better."
"Meera is here."
"I know. I talked to her."
"She's making soup. Too much salt, but I don't tell her."
"Good. Let her take care of you."
"It's strange. Having her here. Like time folded back on itself." She coughed, a wet sound that made Marcus wince. "We've been talking. Really talking. First time in so long."
"That's good."
"She says I can't live alone anymore. Wants me to move to Seattle."
Marcus felt something cold settle in his chest. "What do you think?"
"I think I'm tired of being alone. Tired of cooking for one. Tired of talking to empty rooms."
"Yeah."
"But I'll miss our talks."
"We can still talk."
"It won't be the same."
She was right. It wouldn't be. The magic of their connection had been its boundaries, its separation from the rest of their lives. Once she moved, had people around her, the need would fade. He'd become just a voice from a lonely period she'd rather forget.
"Marcus? You still there?"
"I'm here."
"Will you tell me a story? One of your cowboy stories?"
So he did. Made up something about a gunfighter who fell in love with a schoolteacher, how they wrote letters but never met, how the letters kept them both alive through hard winters and distant troubles.
"That's a sad story," Priya said when he finished.
"They all are, kind of."
"Yes. I suppose they are."
They talked a few more times over the next weeks. Priya got stronger, started packing her house. Meera helped, and they sorted through thirty-seven years of accumulation. Priya told him about finding her wedding sari, her husband's old papers, report cards from when Meera was young.
"So much life," she said. "All in boxes now."
The last time they talked, Priya was in Seattle. She had her own apartment in a senior living facility, she said. Nice place. Activities and a library and a kitchen where they taught cooking classes.
"I'm teaching them to make proper chai," she said. "They've been doing it all wrong."
"Good for you."
"Meera comes by every day. Her children too. They call me Nani. Means grandmother."
"That's nice."
"It is."
They both knew this was goodbye, though neither said it.
"Thank you, Marcus. For everything."
"Thank you too."
"Take care of yourself. Eat real food. Not those gas station burritos."
"I will."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
After they hung up, Marcus sat in his empty trailer for a long time. Then he got up, drove to the grocery store, and bought vegetables. Carrots, onions, potatoes. Simple things. He found a recipe online for soup, something basic he couldn't mess up too badly.
While it simmered, he thought about calling someone. An old friend from high school, maybe. Or his cousin in Billings. Someone to talk to. But he didn't. Not yet.
That night at work, the phone rang at 2:17 AM. Marcus stared at it, heart pounding, but when he answered, it was just Dale.
"Checking in," his supervisor said. "Making sure you're not moping."
"I'm not moping."
"Good. You need anything?"
"No. I'm good."
"Alright then."
After Dale hung up, Marcus walked his rounds through the data center. The servers hummed their electric song, same as always. He thought about Priya in her new apartment, sleeping soundly with her daughter nearby. Thought about his mother, about connections made and lost, about voices across distances that couldn't be measured in miles.
When he got back to the security desk, he picked up his paperback but didn't open it. Instead, he found a notebook in the drawer, one of those composition books they used for logging incidents that never happened. He opened it to the first page and started writing. Not a report. A story. Something about a security guard who gets a wrong number call. Something about loneliness and connection and the ways people save each other without meaning to.
He wrote until sunrise, until his replacement showed up and asked what he was doing.
"Just passing the time," Marcus said.
He drove home as the sun came up over the mountains, turning them gold and pink and purple. The roads were empty. His trailer was cold. He made coffee, strong and bitter, and sat at his small table with the notebook.
There was more to write. More to the story. But first, he needed to sleep. Tomorrow he'd buy more vegetables, try that soup again. Maybe he'd get it right this time. Maybe he'd even share it with someone—Dale, perhaps, or the neighbor who waved but never talked.
Small steps. That's what Priya would say. Small steps toward something better.
He closed the notebook and went to bed, leaving his phone on the nightstand. Just in case. You never knew who might call, or when, or what they might need to hear. The world was full of wrong numbers, missed connections, voices looking for other voices in the dark.
Sometimes, if you were lucky, they found each other.
Sometimes that was enough.