I wake up. The ceiling is cracked in the same place it's been cracked for three years. I don't look at it. I look at the bottle on the nightstand. It's full. I drink from it. It burns less than it used to.

The explosion at Callahan Steel took Maria four years ago. I was at work. I got the phone call at six in the morning while I was drinking coffee from a paper cup on the loading dock. The foreman told me to come down to the hospital. I drove. I got there. She was gone.

That's the facts. That's what happened.

But sometimes—I wake up and it's the morning of the explosion. The coffee is hot. The phone hasn't rung yet. I'm sitting at the kitchen table and Maria is in the shower and the water is running and I know that in three hours the phone will ring and she will be dead.

I don't tell her. There's nothing to say. She'll say "Don't be silly, Joe" and I'll say "I'm not" and we'll have coffee and I'll go to work and the phone will ring and I'll be at the hospital before noon.

I've done this seven times. I've counted. Each time I wake up on the morning of the explosion. Each time I make the same mistakes or different ones. Sometimes I try to get her out of town. She won't go. Sometimes I call the factory and try to warn them. They send the police. Sometimes I just sit at the table and drink and wait for the phone.

The last time—number seven—I didn't go to work. I sat in the chair by the window and watched the street. A man walked a dog. A woman pushed a stroller. A kid on a bike fell off and his mother picked him up and he was crying and then he wasn't.

I thought: this is what life is. Not the big moments. Not explosions or funerals or phone calls at six in the morning. This. The man with the dog. The woman with the stroller. The kid who fell and got up.

The phone rang. I let it ring. It went to voicemail. I let it go to voicemail. I listened to it four times before I picked up.

"Mr. Callahan?" It was the hospital. "We need you to come down."

I said "Okay" and hung up and sat there for a long time.

Then I went to the shower and turned off the water and Maria came out wrapping a towel around her hair and she said "You okay?" and I said "Yeah" and she said "You sure?" and I said "Yeah, I'm sure."

And that was it. That was the whole story. Not an explosion. Not a tragedy. Just a man sitting in a chair watching a street, knowing that something bad was coming, knowing he couldn't stop it, and choosing anyway to watch the man walk the dog and the woman push the stroller and the kid who fell and got up.

I went to the hospital. I signed the papers. I came home. I sat in the chair by the window. The man walked his dog. The woman pushed her stroller. The kid on the bike fell and his mother picked him up and he was crying and then he wasn't.

And I thought: this is what it means to be alive. Not to be saved. Not to be happy. Just to be here, watching the street, knowing that everything ends, and watching it anyway.

The bottle on the nightstand is still full tomorrow morning. I drink from it. It burns the same as it always does.

I get up. I go to work.