The voicemail from my father contains twenty-three seconds of breathing

Dear Delyara, My father left me a voicemail the night before he died. I avoided listening to it for eight months because I assumed it contained something profound and I was afraid I would not survive hearing his final words. Tonight, I finally pressed play. For the first twenty-three seconds, there was only breathing and the sound of his television in the background. Then he said, “Ali? It’s Dad. No rush. Call when you can.” That was all. He must have forgotten why he called. I sat on the kitchen floor listening again and again, waiting for meaning to appear. His breathing is uneven because his lungs were failing, but at the time neither of us knew how close he was to the end. I had seen his name on my phone that evening and thought, I’ll ring him tomorrow. Tomorrow arrived without him. Everyone tells you to answer the final call because stories like mine make it sound obvious afterward. It was not obvious. It was Tuesday. I was tired. Dad called constantly about football, supermarket offers, neighbours, things that felt infinitely repeatable. Now I have twenty-three seconds of him breathing while waiting for me to answer a phone I did not pick up, and strangely that ordinary sound hurts more than if he had known enough to say goodbye.