Jacob Aiello

Whoever is calling us should not be calling us. No one has our number. “Did you give our number to one of your friends?” asks my dad, as if he even has to ask. We’ve just finished dinner and there’s a baseball game on the television in the living room where the telephone is and even though my stepmother is downstairs when it rings she still gets to it first, answers and then announces to the room that she’ll be taking the call in the bathroom. We have a rotary phone in the bathroom hanging on the wall next to the bird cages. The phone is yellow, the birds are green. We have too many phones for no one to have our number, but someone has my stepmother’s number.

Originally published April 2025 in New Letters, Volume 91, Nos. 1 & 2. Nominated for a Pushcart prize.

Available to purchase here.