MargenI have kept a voice message from my father for six years, the last one he left me, so I can hear his voice when I miss him. I know it by heart: eighteen seconds, some nonsense about the garage keys, a laugh at the end.
Last night I played it again, more out of habit than out of grief. Eighteen seconds, the keys, the laugh. And then, where there had always been silence, three more seconds I did not remember.
This time, at the end, it said my name. Very quietly, like someone trying not to wake anybody. It had never said it before. I checked the length of the recording: twenty-one seconds. Yesterday it was eighteen. Tomorrow I do not know whether I will dare to check how many it is.