Chapter 5 - MY FATHER’S PHONE
That night I slept in my childhood bedroom.
Or tried to.
At 2:13 a.m., someone knocked.
Daniel.
He stepped inside and closed the door quietly.
“You need to see something.”
He handed me Dad’s old phone.
I stared.
“I thought Mom said it was lost.”
“She told everyone that.”
“How did you get it?”
“I found it in her desk.”
I looked at him.
“Why were you searching her desk?”
Daniel sat on the edge of the chair.
“Because things stopped making sense.”
He rubbed his hands together.
“Dad complained that you weren’t calling.”
My heart began pounding.
“What?”
“He said, ‘Rebecca must be underwater somewhere. She hasn’t called me in weeks.’”
“I called constantly.”
“I know that now.”
“Why didn’t you tell him?”
“I assumed you were calling Mom.”
“I was.”
Daniel nodded slowly.
“She controlled his phone near the end.”
I stared at the device.
“Password?”
“Your birthday.”
That nearly broke me.
I unlocked it.
The call history had been cleared.
Messages deleted.
But the voicemail folder still contained one unsent recording.
Timestamped seventeen days before Dad died.
I pressed play.
My father’s voice filled the room.
Weak.
Breathing hard.
But unmistakably him.
“Rebecca, your mother thinks I shouldn’t bother you.”
I stopped breathing.
“But I’m going to say this anyway.”
A cough.
“I know you want to come home.”
Another pause.
“Don’t.”
I looked at Daniel.
He was crying.
Dad continued.
“What you’re doing matters.”
“You didn’t leave me.”
“You never left me.”
“I’m the one ordering you to stay.”
Then he laughed faintly.
“Consider it your last illegal order from an old Chief.”
I covered my mouth.
The recording continued.
“I love you, kiddo.”
“And if your mother turns this into something ugly…”
A pause.
“…Walter knows what to do.”
The message ended.
I stared at the screen.
Daniel whispered:
“She deleted it before it sent.”
I looked at him.
“You knew?”
“No.”
“Why was it still here?”
“I think Dad saved it as a draft.”
I stood so quickly the chair fell backward.
May you like
My mother had not simply blamed me for staying away.
She had intercepted the one thing that would have freed me from the guilt.
