Hunting For Pens

The truck that held all our belongings was on its way from California, from the foothill town Spouse and I had cherished and vacated, to our new home in Texas. For a week it had trailed the highways and mountains and the ever-stretching landscape, and it was presently due at our door. And riding along with the possessions were the spaces between, the stowaway air of home, the breath of California.
The telephone rang; the driver had arrived and was circling the neighbourhood, and he needed directions.
As Spouse was better than I at navigating, but unable to come to the telephone just then, I suggested that the fellow tell me his number so that we could call him back in a minute or two.
I hurried off to fetch a pen.
He waited while I scrambled in drawers, while I tore through my handbag, emptied a nearby box of its contents. The driver was patient on the other end of the line.
"I'm sorry," I said at last, unable to contain the thought that struck me, "but you've got all my pens!"
The fellow was ten streets away but I caught echoes of his thunder-laughter on the wind, and it brought that hint of the home we had left behind.