THE RINGING PHONE IN ROOM 614

Dear Delyara, I clean hotel rooms at night. Room 614 checked out yesterday, but the telephone inside keeps ringing. The first time, I ignored it. Hotel phones ring for many reasons. Wrong numbers. Reception. Guests calling the old room by mistake. The second time, I answered. A little girl said, “Daddy?” I told her she had the wrong room. She went silent and then asked whether her father had left his blue sweater behind. She said he stayed at this hotel for work and promised to call after dinner. There was no blue sweater in the room. There was only an empty whiskey bottle, a broken glass in the bathroom, and blood on one of the towels. Security had already taken the guest away in an ambulance before my shift began. Nobody told me whether he survived. The girl called again twenty minutes ago. I watched the phone ring until it stopped. I am only the cleaner. I am not allowed to tell her anything. But somewhere, a child is waiting for a father who may never call, and I am standing inside the last room he slept in, holding a truth that does not belong to me.