The voicemail did not end when Emily stopped speaking.
For several seconds, all I could hear was movement.
A curtain sliding.
Quick footsteps.
The electronic monitor that had been steady suddenly becoming faster.
Someone near Emily said something I couldn’t make out, and then her frightened voice returned.
“Her heart rate dropped again.”
I froze on the nursery floor.
Emily wasn’t talking to me anymore.
She was answering someone beside her.
Then she remembered the phone was still recording.
“Jake,” she whispered, “they’re watching Harper because her heart rate keeps dipping.
I’ve been having contractions.
They don’t know yet if they’ll have to deliver her early.
I just…
I didn’t want you to hear about your daughter from somebody else.”
There was a pause.
Her breathing trembled.
“I needed you tonight.”
The recording ended.
I sat there staring at the blank wall where Harper’s name had been.
My mind kept rejecting the sequence of events because accepting it meant seeing myself clearly.
At 6:03, Emily had been cooking our anniversary dinner.
At 7:45, I had been telling Sienna I was finishing a meeting.
At 9:12, Emily knew something was wrong with the pregnancy.
Somewhere after that, she had gone to the hospital.
And while doctors were watching our daughter’s heart rate, I had looked at my wife’s name glowing on my phone and turned the device off.
I played the next message.
Emily sounded exhausted.
“They’re keeping me here for observation.
Harper’s heartbeat came back up.
They’re trying to stop the contractions.
Please call me when you get this.
Please.”
The next voicemail was shorter.
“I know you’re getting these.”
That sentence was worse than screaming.
The next one came almost an hour later.
No tears this time.
“I called the hotel.”
My throat closed.
Emily continued in the same calm voice she had used in the letter.
“They wouldn’t tell me your room number, obviously.
They didn’t have to.
I know you’re there.
And I know she’s there.”
Silence.
“I kept hoping I was wrong about you because Harper deserved for me to be wrong.”
Another pause.
“I’m done hoping.”
The message ended.
There were still nine voicemails left, but I couldn’t play them yet.
I stood and walked downstairs as if the house might contain some explanation I had missed.
The rooms looked different now.
Not empty exactly.
Accusing.
