Prompt #11

    I was writing by the light of my computer screen when a soft tap was heard on my door.  Who would want me at 11:30pm?  I thought everyone was in bed.
    "Come in?"  I meant it to be a response, but it ended up as more of a question.
    My father pushed my door open (the door handle doesn't really work so most of the time my door is balanced shut) and he peered in.  "You awake?"
    I smiled to myself, how could I be asleep and still answer his tap?  But he was joking if course.  "Yep," came my reply.
    "Phone for you."
    Now, something you need to know at this point is that I never get phone calls.  Especially not at night.  So I took the phone with more hesitation than I answered the knock.  To my relief, it was only my sister.  Because of the time difference between the pan-handle of Florida and the middle of Maine, it's only 10:30pm where she is.  It's a slightly more reasonable time to be calling people.
    "Hey there, how's it going?"
    "I needed to ask you a favor," she sounded tired and in a hurry.  College can be that way I've heard.
    "Sure, what do you need?"
    "Remember that quote you mailed me in your last letter?"
    "The one about the slippers?  Sure, it was a good one."
    "I wanted to put it in my essay, but I can't find the card anymore.  Could you look it up again?  Maybe with the source?"
    She probably threw the card away, I thought, but I'm not bitter.  That's what people do with letters they've already read.  Soon I come up with the quote and read it to her complete with the source. "The key to your happiness is to own your slippers, own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have, and own the ones you don’t. If you keep saying your slippers aren’t yours, then you’ll die searching, you’ll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more. Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny.”  -  Abraham Verghese
    After reading it again, but slower so that she could type it, she thanked me and said goodbye.  I hung up the phone and crawled under my covers.  It was late and I had an early morning ahead of me.