The Last Voicemail

I hadn’t heard my dad’s voice in nearly two years. Not since the funeral. Not since I stood in front of a congregation of people in ties and stiff dresses pretending they all knew him, pretending they understood why I was breaking in half.

He was the kind of man who left quietly. A coffee mug still on the table, one sock in the laundry basket, a book half-finished. A sudden heart attack, the doctor had said. Like the end of a sentence that came too soon.

But last Thursday, his voice appeared on my phone.

It was an old number — his number, long since disconnected. The message said:

"Hey, kiddo. I know it’s been a while. Thought I’d check in. Call me when you get this."

I dropped the phone. It hit the hardwood floor with a dull thud that echoed louder than it should have in my tiny Brooklyn apartment.

There’s no way this was real. I checked the time stamp: April 17th, 10:43 a.m. That was today. An hour ago.

I called the number back. Disconnected.

I listened again. It was him. Same gravelly voice, that soft rasp at the end of each sentence. Same word — “kiddo.” He always called me that, even after I turned thirty.

I spent the whole night spiraling. Googling weird tech glitches. Looking up deepfakes. Checking if voicemails could somehow be re-sent by a carrier. They can’t. And even if they could, this wasn’t an old voicemail. It referenced time passing.

I barely slept.

The next day, I called my mom. I didn’t tell her why, not at first. I asked about his old phone. She told me it was buried with him — his favorite flannel shirt, a Yankees cap, and that beat-up Nokia I used to tease him about. “He’d want to stay connected,” she said, and laughed in that way that sounds like crying.

“Why do you ask?” she said.

“No reason,” I lied.

I started asking myself things I didn’t want to answer. Did I want this to be a message from beyond? Was I that desperate?

By the third night, I decided to call the number again. It rang.

Once. Twice. Then a voice picked up.

But it wasn’t my dad.

“Hello?” a young man said.

“Uh… I’m sorry, I must have the wrong number.”

“Wait,” he said quickly. “Did you get a voicemail from this number?”

My breath caught. “Yes.”

He sighed, sounding exhausted. “You’re not the first one. This number… it used to belong to my grandfather. He passed away two years ago. I took over the line for work.”

My heart thudded. “What do you mean, I’m not the first?”

“I’ve had three other people say they got a voicemail from my grandfather recently. All different times. All different messages. But they all said it felt personal. Like it was meant just for them.”

I didn’t know what to say. I could feel my hands shaking.

“He was kind of a techie,” the man said. “Even in his seventies. Used to work with sound design, voice recordings. Maybe he set something up. I don’t know. But it’s like… he left echoes behind.”

Echoes.

That word stayed with me.

Maybe it wasn’t about ghosts. Maybe it was about love hanging on. About voices that leave a mark. About the things we can’t say when we’re alive, finding a way to be heard after.

Before we hung up, the man said, “He always said he wanted to leave something behind for people. Something small, but that mattered.”

I listened to the voicemail one last time that night.

"Hey, kiddo. I know it’s been a while. Thought I’d check in. Call me when you get this."

I closed my eyes, and for the first time in years, I didn’t cry when I thought about him. I smiled.

Because maybe he did check in. Maybe that was enough.

Maybe that was everything.