I used my mother’s old voicemail to teach my baby her grandmother’s voice

Dear Delyara, My mother died two years before my daughter was born. I have only three voice messages from her. In one, she reminds me to bring a jacket because it might rain. Another is mostly pocket noise. The third says, “Call me when you get home, sweetheart.” My daughter is ten months old now. Tonight, while she was playing on the rug, I played that message aloud. She stopped and looked toward the phone. Then she smiled. I played it again. She crawled over and touched the screen. I know she was responding to a voice, not recognizing a grandmother she never met. Still, I began crying so hard she looked frightened. I picked her up and said, “That was your grandma.” The sentence felt impossible. Mum wanted grandchildren desperately. She used to buy baby clothes before I was even pregnant and hide them badly. My daughter is wearing one of those pajamas tonight. I keep imagining them together, which is a kind of love and a kind of torture. I have started backing up the voicemails obsessively because they are now the only way my daughter can ever hear the woman who would have said her name a thousand times.