The Voice on the Line
“Susie, I… I think your mother is on the line.”
My heart hammered against my ribs. The voice wasn’t my husband’s. It was older, raspier, and filled with a gentle sadness.
“Who are you?” I screamed, my knuckles white as I gripped the phone. “My husband has been dead for 18 years! Who are you and why are you pretending to be him?”
There was a long silence, followed by a heavy sigh. “Ma’am, please. Don’t hang up. My name is Walter. I’m 72 years old.”
“I don’t care how old you are! I’m calling the police!”
“Please,” he begged, his voice cracking. “Let me explain. Three years ago, I received a call. It was Susie. She was crying. She was trying to dial her dad’s old number to leave a voicemail on what she thought was a disconnected line. But the company had reassigned the number to me.”
I froze. “And you didn’t tell her?”
“I tried,” Walter said softly. “But she was sobbing, talking about how she got bullied at school and how much she needed her dad. I… I lost my own daughter to cancer ten years ago. I haven’t heard anyone call me ‘Dad’ since she died.”
Tears welled up in my eyes, blurring my vision.
“I just listened,” Walter continued. “At first, I didn’t say anything. But eventually, I started answering. She would tell me about her day, her fears, her prom date. I would tell her the things I wished I could have told my own girl. That she’s smart, that she’s beautiful, that her dad loves her.”
“You let her believe…”
“She knows I’m not him, ma’am,” Walter interrupted gently. “We both know. It was just… a game of pretend that saved us both. I’m a lonely old man in a nursing home, and she’s a girl who missed a father she never knew. We were just comforting each other.”
I slowly lowered the phone, looking down the hallway where Susie’s door was slightly ajar. I could hear her muffled sobbing.
I didn’t call the police. I walked into Susie’s room. She looked up, terrified, expecting anger. Instead, I climbed into bed with her and pulled her into my arms.
“He told me,” I whispered. “He told me about his daughter.”
Susie broke down. “I just wanted to know what it felt like, Mom. To have a dad ask how my day was.”
The next Sunday, we didn’t go to the cemetery. Instead, Susie and I drove to the Cedar Grove Nursing Home. When we found Room 304, a frail man in a wheelchair looked up, his eyes widening.
Susie ran to him and hugged him. “Hi, Dad,” she whispered.
Walter wept. And for the first time in 18 years, I realized that family isn’t always blood—sometimes, it’s just two broken hearts helping each other heal.
