SEATTLE — We were in the ferry line on Whidbey Island, Washington, when I felt the familiar urge to call my mom. That wasn’t possible. I knew that. I looked around, at the passenger waiting room and myriad Subarus and camper vans, hoping to find something to focus on rather than my grief, lingering like an ugly dormant volcano. A light caught my eye, shining on a relic of a bygone analog era: a pay phone, housed under a Whidbey Telecom cover. I walked over and held the heavy receiver in my hands. The phone works, though that didn’t matter to me. I dialed a number, the one I memorized when I wa…