She’d kept it for six years. One voicemail, thirty-one seconds long, saved on three different phones across three different upgrades because she refused to lose it.
It wasn’t romantic, technically. He’d called to say he was running late, that the train was delayed, that he’d grab dinner on the way. Ordinary words. But at the end, almost as an afterthought, he’d said: “Anyway. I just wanted to hear your voice say hello back, even if it’s just the machine. Okay. Bye.”
She’d been having a hard week when he left it. She hadn’t told him how hard. She’d played it back four times that night and something about the casualness of it — the way he hadn’t performed the sentiment, had practically muttered it — made it land harder than anything more deliberate could have.
She played it for him once, years later, on an anniversary.
Felix listened to his own younger voice with an expression she couldn’t quite read.
“I don’t remember saying that,” he said when it ended.
“I know. That’s why I kept it.”
“Why?”
“Because you weren’t trying to say something beautiful. You just meant it.” She put the phone down. “The accidental ones are always the truest.”
He was quiet for a moment, processing this. Then he reached for his own phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Recording one on purpose this time. To see if it’s worse.”
She laughed, and he held the phone up, deadpan: “Hi. It’s me. I’m sitting right next to you, which is a strange time to leave a voicemail, but I wanted you to have a second one. For the next six years.”
She kept that one too.
Love is sometimes accidental and sometimes deliberate, and the wise ones learn to save both.
✦ Today’s Reflection
Is there an unplanned moment with your partner — a text, a voicemail, an offhand sentence — that has stayed with you far longer than they ever intended?
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Sonia M. Rompoti, MSc, Bsc 
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