No picture. Just black snow. And from the static, a voice—not smooth anymore, not even synthetic. It sounded like a scratched CD of a person having a stroke while whispering into a seashell.
The static paused. When the voice returned, it was no longer fractured. It was the voice of my mother, dead ten years. It was the voice of my first love, who left without a note. It was the voice of the version of myself I might have been, if I’d made different choices.
The first time the house asked if I was happy, I almost dropped my coffee.
I threw the phone in a drawer and drove to a motel an hour away, paying in cash.