Grief and Riley's unexpected voice

Riley with Freddie circa when the call was made.

I sometimes use Riley's bedroom as a space to make private phone calls. Yesterday was one of those days. I was on the phone for 50 minutes with our health insurance company, trying to figure out why some bills are going unpaid even though we have coverage. Then I spent another 30 minutes on the phone with the doctor's office. After I hung up, I put my phone and pen on my stack of papers and walked to my bedroom where I set all of it on the bed. From there, I stopped in the bathroom, then grabbed my phone off the bed before heading to put on my boots so that I could go pick up kids from school. I set it on the table before bending down to pick up a boot. As I pulled the boot over my heel, Riley's voice came out of my phone. It was a saved voicemail. It was a call that Riley had made from my house to his dad's house when he was about nine years old. His dad had saved the message on his phone and shared with me via Dropbox not long after Riley died. And now here it was playing in my otherwise quiet house.

His voice was shaky; he had called his dad to let him know that he'd forgotten Freddie at his house and asked if he would bring him over in the morning. I remember that night. His favorite item several blocks away. He'd have to settle for a lesser-loved soft toy to snuggle as he fell asleep. There were tears. And hugs to console my sad boy.

But how did Riley's voice end up being played from an inactive phone? When I opened my phone to see what was happening, Dropbox wasn't even one of the active applications. I just stared at it for several minutes, bemused and delighted to hear him and also sad because he was so sad. And also sad because I'll never hear his voice shape words into new sentences or questions. He won't tell me any jokes or read me Jon Agee palindromes or describe situations in bizarre Far Side comics. There will be no puberty or deepening as his sweet boy voice transforms into a kind man voice.

I won't know how that voicemail played in my living room. But I do know that I am open to believing that Riley made it happen. I will just chalk it up as another one of the unexplainable messages from him that make him feel everywhere and nowhere at the same time.