My phone rang. The caller ID said it was an toll-free customer service line.

“Hello?” I said.

“Is this Eleanor Vance?” a young man’s voice asked. He sounded very young, like he was working his first summer job. He had a slight Midwestern drawl.

“Yes, this is Eleanor.”

“My name is Danny, ma’am. I’m calling from the account billing department. We received a request from a Sarah Miller to disconnect the line ending in 4092. The request was submitted online, but because the account is still technically in Mark Davis’s name, we had to do a final verification. He authorized her as an admin on the account yesterday.”

I gripped the edge of my armchair. My fingers felt stiff.

“Yes,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “I was told it was being shut down.”

There was a long pause on the other end. I could hear the faint click of a keyboard, the distant murmur of other voices in a room miles away.

“Ma’am,” Danny said. His tone had changed. It wasn’t the flat, polite customer service voice anymore. It was quiet. “Before we close this, I was reviewing the account history. Because this is an older analog plan that is being completely purged from our servers, any saved data on the voicemail server will be permanently deleted on Tuesday morning.”

“I know,” I said. “I just call to hear the greeting. I don’t need the mailbox.”

“Well, that’s the thing,” Danny said. He paused, clearing his throat. “There are 3 saved messages in this box.

They aren’t incoming messages. They are drafts. They were recorded from the phone itself, but they were never sent to an outside line. They were just saved in the system. And they have a voice tag on them that says ‘For Mom.'”

My stomach dropped. I felt a cold prickle of sweat on the back of my neck.

“What did you say?” I asked.

“They were recorded on October 14th, 4 years ago,” Danny said. “That was three days before the account became inactive. Do you want me to play them for you? I can patch the audio through to your current line.”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, please.”

There was a series of electronic beeps, and then a static hiss.

Then, my daughter’s voice filled my living room. It wasn’t the bright, rehearsed voice from her greeting. It was low, quick, and she was breathing heavily.