It started last week. I bustled into my house with palms flat on the bottom of two, very full shopping bags, each meticulously balanced against each shoulder. After putting them onto the kitchen counter, I saw it. A text notification stating that my Mother had left me a voicemail. I remember the surprise I felt. My Mother had died when I was fourteen. I am twenty-eight now. She died of breast cancer. She died slowly; even the doctors and nurses couldn’t believe how she’d been able to hold on with such agony for so long.
Obviously, I reasoned that her number had finally been assigned to someone else, and that person had accidentally called the wrong number. But when I checked, there were no calls from the number - her number. Just the voicemail. I decided not to listen to it. I never listen to voicemails.
Then, the next day, it happened again. In the morning. I finished sorting myself out for work - suit and tie, and again, a text.
‘You missed a call from me at 07:43. Check Voicemail.’
It was the same automated message, with no record of a call ever made when I checked my call history. So I decided to listen to the two voicemails left.
“Hello, Charlie?” It started. The voice was static, but I could clearly tell it was my Mother’s voice. I almost jumped out of my skin when I first heard it; her unmistakable, croaking voice that years of chemotherapy heralded. “Charlie, when are you going home?”
It spooked me greatly. I listened to the other.
“Charlie? Charlie are you there? Are you going home?” The second voicemail churned out, like metal scraping against rock.
I chalked it up to voicemails that never managed to send, even though fourteen years is a long time for them to finally come through. I thought it was ridiculous, at the time, to conceive that my long-dead Mother was actually contacting me from beyond the grave.
That evening I went out - saw my friend David and got extremely, excruciatingly drunk. So drunk, in fact, that I told him what had been happening to me. I played him the voicemails.
“You should call her.” He hiccuped out, sniffling, and rubbing his beet-red nose. So I did. Of course, the person on the other end didn’t pick up. The phone beeped, and then went to voicemail. “Leave a voicemail.” He ordered, hiccuping again.
I don’t remember what I said. Probably some profanities and a request to leave me alone. I mean, at the time, I still didn’t think it was her - my Mother.
The day after I received several texts notifying me of missed calls and voicemails left. Once again, no calls, just the voicemails. I remember how my head pounded against my skull, further ushering me into fits of annoyance at the sheer gall of this stranger to continue to harass me under my Mother’s name. So I listened. With each one, the same garbled, grating audio persisted, albeit even harder to distinguish than before.
“Charlie..? Are you… there? Are you going… home?”
“Charlie! Don’t you… dare speak to… me like that! I am your… Mother! Listen… to me… Charlie.”
“Charlie… Please… don’t go home, Charlie…”
The speech became more garbled.
“236 Gospel Tree Road. I am… Mother, Charlie… knows… where you are.”
At that last one, my body froze over; cold beads of sweat trickling down my back. The hangover didn’t help my anxiety, and I ran to my bathroom to grab my medication. Lorazepam. I felt sick; what was I supposed to do? Do I call the police? I knew how the stalking laws work - until there’s an actual threat, the police can’t do anything. At that point, all I knew was that, whoever it was on the other line, masquerading as my Mother, knew where I lived. So I did the only thing I knew to do: I called my Dad. Well, my step-Dad, but I called him Dad.
My Dad and I… have a strange relationship. My Mother was not a nice woman, who often berated my Dad for being ‘subpar’, in her, quote-unquote, extremely humble opinion. She was a controlling, conservative woman, who, as she grew sicker, became less and less tolerant of my Dad’s more erratic and free-spirited nature. Because I didn’t want to be anything but the ideal son, after my older step-Brother went off the rails, cut the family off, and joined some strange self-help group; I didn’t defend my Dad from my Mother’s verbal tirades. He still thought I would take her side to this day, even though she’s long gone.
“Dad?” I asked, after the line had picked up. He didn’t respond. “It’s me, Charlie. I need help.”
Finally, I heard a sigh, and what sounded like a scratching against his scalp. “Hi, son. What is it?”
“Mother’s been leaving me voicemails. Well, someone who’s using her number has been. They’ve been harassing me, and now they know where I live. Could I stay at yours for a bit, or maybe, you come round here?”
There was a pregnant pause. “I hate that you still call her that.”
“What?”
“Mother. Like she’s some fucking icon or something. I’m ‘Dad’ and she’s ‘Mother.’” Another pause. “But what? Someone knows where you live? Have you been talking to people online again?”
I was so confused. “What? No? What are you talking about?”
A deep, wry chuckle emerged from the other end of the phone. “Obviously I’m talking about what you used to do when you were younger, Charlie. When you were on those emails with strangers online.”
I had no idea what he was talking about. “I never did that.”
“Yes you did. That’s why you weren’t allowed on the computer.”
I became frustrated. “Okay, whatever. I’m an adult man, why would I be emailing strangers, or whatever the fuck? Someone knows where I live, and I need help.”
Silence.
“I can’t help you Charlie. It’s time you learn to do things for yourself.” And he hung up on me. And I was alone, in my house, with the knowledge that someone knew where I lived.
Then, Friday came. I was nervous, apprehensive, to come home after work, but after locking all my doors and windows, and walking around my house with a bread knife, just to double check that there was no one hiding in any possible nook or cranny, I finally felt at ease. So I cracked open a beer, and sat on my sofa. Whilst watching whatever crap was on TV, I reminisced about my Mother. She was a cruel woman, but she loved me, in her own, strange way. I thought about how she’d never let me attend sleepovers, or stay out late. How she’d made me learn the violin and piano up to grade 8, so that I’d get into a good University. How she’d only allowed herself to pick me up from school. How she’d made me spend many a night revising in front of her on the kitchen table, and test me afterwards. How she’d pat me on the back for getting good grades. How she’d continually check on me throughout the night. How most of this only happened once my step-Brother finally moved out, never to contact us again.
I thought some more. How frail she looked as she was in her last few months. How she’d always look just past my shoulder, just behind me, at my Dad, even as she spoke to me from her bed. How she’d berate my Dad to me - tell me he wasn’t a good person, and that I needed to be careful. I always thought she went a bit loopy at the end. Then, ping.
A text. And a voicemail.
I listened. The curiosity overcame me. Just as I was about to play it, a flurry of voicemails came through. I played the first one.
“Charlie. You need to be careful… Char…lie…”
I was so drunk, I had no idea what she meant. I played the next one.
“Its… Mother, Charlie. Mother… knows best.”
“Char…lie… Its getting harder to tell you, but you need to… he’s here.”
There was a knock at my front door. I yelped out in fright, the shock of it all shaking me to my core. I peered out of the peephole. My Dad was stood outside, looking at the ground. Before I could open the door, a ping from my phone stopped me in my tracks. Another voicemail. For some reason, everything in my gut told me to listen to it.
“Charlie. Do NOT… open the do…or.”
So I didn’t. But I spoke to my Dad through the door. “Dad?”
“Open the door, Charlie.” He said, sternly. I gulped.
Ping.
“Don’t… listen… to him.”
“What are you doing, son? Open the damn door?” He yelled once more, pounding his fist against the door.
Ping.
“I should have… told you… Char…lie.”
“I’ve been getting her messages too, Charlie. Let’s talk!” He screeched, furiously pounding at the door. “Please, son!”
Ping.
“He has… a knife… Charlie.”
I froze up. Looking through the peephole once more, I noticed he was concealing something behind his back. The sheer dread that filled my gut was something I’d never felt before. I did not like my Mother, but whatever this thing was, using her name and voice, even if it was her, I knew I had to trust her. “I’ll call the police if you don’t leave.” I barely managed to utter out.
He furiously kicked at the door. “You’ve always believed her, that bitch! That worthless bitch! Fuck! I’ve been nothing but good to you, you useless bastard! Fuck! Good for nothing prick!”
And I felt it. Pure, sheer panic engulfed my body. The snarl on my Dad’s face brought it all back. The strangers on the computer. The emails harassing me, begging me for images of myself. How my Mother berated me. How she’d smashed my computer up, even in her frail state. How she called my Dad to come and look. How his face crumpled from sweet and docile into a horrendous, lecherous anger. How she’d noticed, and put the pieces together, in the same way I had now.
Ping.
“Call… the police… Charl…ie.”
So I did just that. I called them. My Dad never left my front door, and his screams to be let in soon turned to screams on the phone to, I assume, my Mother’s number, in which I heard voicemail after voicemail left by him to her. Screams of anguish that led to agonising pleas for forgiveness, like a sinner at a confessional. The police arrived, rather quickly, and after tackling my Dad to the ground and forcing him into cuffs, exchanged solemn glances with one another, and came to me to revere pitied apologies. It appeared they’d recognised me, even in my now adult state, as being an individual who’d appeared on many dark-web forums. Forums for unsavoury purposes. Sorry, I’m not sure if I want to divulge into details, but you get the gist.
Dad, though I ought to call him Steven, now, is currently in custody as I write this. I’ll probably - most likely, have to be a witness in Court. I’ve sent a facebook message to my step-Brother, detailing everything, but I suppose he must already know, hence his lack of contact over the years. I only received one more voicemail from my Mother, which came through this morning. Unlike the previous voicemails, this one was clear, untainted, almost like my Mother was right here, whispering in my ear.
“Goodbye, Charlie. I love you.”