Chapter 2 - THE VOICEMAILS I DELETED

I sat in my truck outside St. Vincent for forty-three minutes.

I did not start the engine.

I opened my deleted voicemail folder.

Empty.

I called my carrier.

The representative told me deleted voicemail recovery depended on retention.

“How long?”

“Usually not this long, sir.”

“Usually?”

“There may be archived metadata.”

“I need the recordings.”

“I understand.”

“No, you don’t.”

I heard my own voice and stopped.

The woman on the line went quiet.

“I’m sorry.”

She gave me a case number.

It was not enough.

Nothing was enough.

I went back inside.

Sophie was gone from the hallway.

A nurse told me she had been admitted overnight.

“She asked us not to give visitors her room.”

Of course she had.

I left.

At two in the morning, I was sitting on the floor of my apartment with an old laptop.

I searched every backup.

Every cloud folder.

Every synchronized message archive.

Nothing.

Then I remembered the old house.

Sophie had used a smart speaker in the kitchen to call me when her hands were covered in flour.

The device sometimes stored communication logs.

At 2:38, I drove across town.

The house was dark.

We had not sold it yet.

I still had a key.

Inside, everything smelled closed.

I walked past the white nursery.

I did not look in.

The kitchen device was unplugged.

I connected it.

Old notifications loaded.

There.

Four calls to me.

One had a voice transcription fragment.

ETHAN PLEASE CALL ME BEFORE TOMORROW I’M SCARED AND I DON’T—

The rest was missing.

I sat down hard.

Then another record appeared.

A fifth outgoing call.

Not to me.

To my mother.

My mother had never told me Sophie called her.

At 2:51 a.m., I called Mom.

She answered on the third ring.

“Ethan?”

“Why did Sophie call you before our divorce?”

Silence.

Not confusion.

Silence.

My mother knew exactly what I meant.

“Mom.”

Her voice changed.

“You need to come over.”

“What did she tell you?”

“Not on the phone.”

“Tell me.”

“She made me promise.”

“Promise what?”

Another pause.

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