She Still Calls

The first calls

I don't really know how to start this. I've been going over it for weeks and can't find a way that doesn't sound crazy. But I don't care anymore. I need someone to read this.

My mom, Carmen, died on March 14th. Pancreatic cancer. She was 61. She got diagnosed in November and didn't make it to spring. That's what this kind of cancer does: it doesn't negotiate. I'm 29 and an only child — well, not really, I have an older sister, Lucía, who lives in Valencia. I was in Madrid when the hospital called. It took me four hours to get there. I didn't make it in time.

My mom was one of those people who call every Sunday at noon without fail. It didn't matter if we'd talked on Thursday or if I'd told her I'd be busy. At twelve o'clock sharp, the phone rang. It was her. Always. That Sunday habit was etched into her bones. When she died, for the first few Sundays I'd look at my phone and catch myself waiting without meaning to. That's grief, I guess. Your body takes longer to get the memo than your head does.

The phone thing was her idea. A few days before she died, when she could still talk though it took a lot of effort, she told me she wanted to be buried with it. Her cell phone. She didn't give me a reason. She said it like it was the most natural thing in the world, like asking me to water the plants or not leave the lights on. "Put the phone in the casket, Javier. Mine." I did it. I didn't question it. It was the last thing she asked of me.

The number is still active. The plan is still running. I know I should have canceled it months ago, but every time I try to call the company I freeze. Last time I hung up before they even answered. I can't explain it. Canceling the number feels like something final that I'm still not ready to do. So it's still there. Her number. Saved in my phone as "Mom."

The first calls came in October. The first one was on a Friday around 11 something at night. I saw the screen, saw the name, and the air left my lungs. I let it go to voicemail. I told myself it was a technical glitch, that sometimes numbers of deceased people can generate phantom calls due to some system error, I don't know — I made up something that sounded reasonable because the alternative made no sense at all.

The second call came three days later, past midnight. I didn't pick up that time either. I just stared at the screen until it stopped. I didn't convince myself as easily this time, but I still didn't want to think about what it meant.

The third time, I picked up.

There was no voice. Just silence, and then breathing. Not loud, not dramatic — just the sound of someone breathing on the other end. I hung up after four seconds. I didn't sleep at all that night.

The next morning I called the cemetery. I know how weird that sounds. I asked the woman who answered if there had been any incidents, anything unusual near my mother's grave. She asked for the last name, looked it up, and said no, everything was fine. I don't know what I expected her to say.

I called a friend who works in telecom. I asked him if it was technically possible for a buried phone to make calls. He was quiet for a moment. Then he told me that for a phone to make a call, it needs to be on, have battery, and have signal. That underground, the signal doesn't reach. That it wasn't possible.

The calls kept coming. Always from her number.

What it says

Update. Three weeks have passed since I wrote the first part. I know it doesn't have much context because I never actually posted it — it was sitting in drafts — but now I need to keep going because things have changed.

The calls have continued. Two or three times a week, always between 11 PM and 2 AM. I've started picking up every time. I don't know if that's courage or if I just don't care about protecting myself anymore.

The first few times: just breathing. The same sound as before, steady, regular, like someone sleeping or someone waiting. I've learned not to hang up right away. I stay on the line, listening, trying to find something that tells me it's a normal call from a number someone found, or a carrier error, or anything that makes sense.

On the fourth call I picked up, I heard something more. A sound that could have been a voice. Very faint, like someone talking on the other side of a thick wall, or like hearing something through water. Indistinct. But definitely not just breathing.

I started recording the calls with a second phone. I'd put the first one on speaker and bring the other phone close to capture the audio. Then I'd turn the volume up as high as it would go and listen. Most of them have nothing clear. Background noise, interference, that breathing sound.

On one of the recordings, when I turned the volume all the way up, I heard my name.

"Javier."

In my mother's voice.

I listened to it four times in a row to be sure. I went to the kitchen, poured myself some water, came back, and listened four more times. I wasn't imagining it. It was her voice. The voice that called me every Sunday of my life, the voice that read me bedtime stories when I was little, the voice that told me to put her phone in the casket.

I sent the audio to Lucía without saying anything — just asked her what she heard. She called me from the street five minutes later. She couldn't talk. She was just crying. Finally she said: "It's Mom." And hung up.

I have a friend named Marcos. He works mixing audio for movies. I sent him three of the recordings. He analyzed them for two days. He called me and said the background noise was consistent with a small, enclosed space: high reverberation, limited frequency range, like something recorded in a small room with hard walls. He said it was like recording inside a box. That he didn't know what technical explanation to give. That it wasn't an audio compression glitch or radio interference. That what I was hearing was someone talking in a very, very small space.