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The first few times she called and it rang to voice mail she thought nothing of it. He’d always been the “rebellious child”, never answering his phone when she called because he was sulking. His choice to leave home had naturally been met with refusal, what sort of parent wishes their baby to leave, but still she’d slid some money into his bag the night before he left on his own. Her monthly letters to him where never bitter or angry, just full of words she knew would steam him up enough to keep him going. Even if it was out of spite to prove her wrong she was pleased whenever he showed up on television, his ranks climbing steadily through the videos he cockily sent home.
"Look at me." He’d write on notes, scribbled messy handwriting that she’d spent years scolding him over while they sat at a small kitchen table. "I’m going places Mom. See what happens when I’m not held back?" There was always a picture too with the video, of him and his friends. Smiling, always smiling. Peace signs gave way to thumbs up, thumbs up moved to him holding something she never quite understood. A toy? He stopped smiling in the photos after that.
The calls never connected when she tried, perhaps it was the time of day? She didn’t know his schedule in the new city, the child that he’d left behind at home when he went off to be a man was different. Early in bed, late out of it. Sitting bleary at the table, told to open his eyes while eating and aim more for his mouth, not the floor. On those streets, sneakers scuffing up pavement as he and his friends carved out their name to crowds, when and where was he at any time? The notes had stopped coming. She was worried. So she changed the time she called at, alternating days and hours. It was easy enough to keep track of them, being a stay at home mother had its advantages, and when her husband always asked why she woke up in the middle of the night to use the phone she could laugh off the shake of his head.
Every time she called she left a message. At first they were the typical sort, an excuse saying she hadn’t gotten a video in a while and therefore was wondering if he gave up. She chided him for being lazy, never going so far as to mock, but she always made sure to use those words she knew usually lit a fire beneath him. The lines about coming home were in there, lines about going back to school and making something of himself. Never outright cruel, but just enough of a push she hoped would make him call her back and yell about how she didn’t understand. He never called her back, and so the messages grew shorter.
"I haven’t heard from you, please call me when you have a chance." She always said. Eventually that faded down, watered itself out as a week passed. Then a month. Two. "Call me." That was all she could say to keep the panic from her voice. A cold fear didn’t need to be inserted, she didn’t want him to know her concern. She never asked her husband to call, he said something about boys being boys and her being a worrywart, but she knew. He’d never really been a mother’s boy, his sense of independence strong from the moment he could speak and run from her arms, but she knew. "Call."
Then one day the inbox was full. Please hang up and try your call again later. A mechanical voice, robotic and emotionless, replaced the swaggering tones of a son whose voice she was beginning to miss hearing. A voice that videos couldn’t recreate, couldn’t duplicate. A voice she hadn’t heard in too long and a face she hadn’t seen except in her dreams. A mistake, she thought. There was no way his inbox could be full, she hadn’t called him enough to make it so. Surely by now he’d checked messages, erased them while complaining to his companions about his overbearing mother. She liked to think he did that while blushing at their laughter, all good and friendly. Why hadn’t he checked his messages and called her to tell her to stop pestering him? Why couldn’t she call him and tell him to come home?
Where was her son?
She got a bill in the mail. The service had expired, it said. Unpaid. Unused. Data minutes where there if she wanted to use them, they rolled for the month, but the bill was three months overdue. Four actually, by the time the notice arrived. A mistake, it had to be a mistake. There was no way this could happen, no way he wouldn’t pay. He was a responsible child in that regard, his phone was his lifeline home and with his friends, he simply wouldn’t stop paying. Frantically she’d dialed that number she knew by heart, a number she could press with eyes closed and the phone behind her back.
The number you have dialed is no longer in service.
The phone hit the floor.
The bill got paid, the account switched to her name. It was easy enough to do, going to the service provider and explaining that he’d come back home and she was taking over for him. They didn’t ask any more questions than that, the tremble of her lip or the red of her eyes perhaps enough of a deterrent. It was turned back on, they told her, he could start taking calls again at any time. Thank you, she’d replied.
The first call lead to an empty inbox, all messages from before gone when the number was turned off and the data plan removed. This was a chance to fill it back up, to call it again and hear him speak. His voice, broken and distorted through a recording. Her son, her baby, her everything.
"Call me."
He never called.
She kept paying.
She would always keep paying.
"Ryouji, call me. I love you."