PART 2 – The Truth Behind the Number
All day long the conversation with Teresa's son echoed in my head. I tried to convince myself that there had to be a logical explanation. Maybe he was mistaken. Maybe he was talking about another Teresa. Maybe there was something I didn't understand. But deep down I knew his voice was genuinely sorrowful. It didn't sound like a prank. It sounded like someone who had just heard a stranger claim to have heard the voice of their deceased mother.
That evening I sat alone at the kitchen table with the phone in front of me. Teresa's number was still in the list. I stared at it for entire minutes without doing anything. I wanted to call back, but something held me back. What should I have said? "Hello, your dead mother calls me every morning"? It felt impossible even in my own head. Yet I couldn't stop thinking about one thing: why did Teresa know my name? Why had she said she knew about me more than I imagined?
The next morning I woke up again at eight, even though I had barely slept. My body expected the sound of the phone, as if my daily routine had suddenly become stronger than my reason. But nothing happened. No calls. No unknown voice. Just silence. I noticed that this silence felt different from the past. Before, silence was simply my normal life. Now it felt like a void where something had vanished.
After an hour I decided to call the number I had. This time the same man answered. "Paolo?" he asked, surprised. I got scared. "How do you know my name?" He remained silent for a moment. "Because I saw your number on my mother's phone." My heart beat faster. "You have her phone?" "Yes," he said softly. "I'm trying to sort through her things." I didn't know what to say. Then he asked me something I never expected: "Can you tell me when my mother first called you?"
I told him everything. About the first morning. About the conversations. About the way Teresa always said, "Hello, my boy." The man listened without interrupting me. When I finished, I heard him breathe slowly. "That's strange," he said. "Why?" I asked. "Because in the last months of her life my mother barely called anyone anymore." I frowned. "What do you mean?" He sighed.
"My mother was sick. She lived alone. She found it harder and harder to do everyday things. She almost didn't talk to anyone anymore." I looked at my phone. "But she called me every day." "I understand," he said. "And that's why I want to ask you something." His voice grew softer. "Did my mother ever tell you anything about the past?" I thought about it. Teresa had never told much. She mostly asked questions of me. She asked about my day, my life, my memories. As if she wasn't the one feeling lonely, but as if she wanted to know if I was feeling it.
A few days later I agreed to meet Daniel, Teresa's son. I didn't know exactly why I went. Maybe because I wanted answers. Maybe because deep down I felt that Teresa hadn't called me by chance. We arranged to meet in a small cafe near her old house. When Daniel walked in, I immediately recognized something in his face. Not because I had seen him before, but because he had the same calm look as his mother.
He sat down opposite me and placed an old phone on the table. "This was my mother's," he said. "I found something strange checking her messages." My heart began to beat faster. "What?" He slid the phone toward me. On the screen was a list of outgoing calls. My number was at the top. Every morning at eight. Exactly as I had experienced it. But then Daniel pointed to the date. "Look here." I looked. The first call didn't go back ten days. Nor two weeks. It was almost three months ago.
I looked at Daniel, surprised. "That's impossible." He nodded slowly. "I thought so too." He told me that three months earlier his mother had begun to become increasingly confused. Sometimes she forgot names. Sometimes she no longer knew what day it was. But one thing she did every morning without exception. She picked up the phone and dialed the same number.
My number. "Did she ever tell you why?" I asked. Daniel looked at the table. "No. But there's something else." He pulled a small envelope from his bag. The envelope looked old and my name was written on it. Not my full name. Just: Paolo. My hands turned cold when I saw it. "Where did you find it?" I asked. Daniel looked me straight in the eye. "In the drawer next to her bed." I gently touched the envelope. I didn't recognize the handwriting. Yet it felt strangely familiar.
I didn't have the courage to open the envelope right away. There was something about that moment that scared me. As if I weren't just holding a letter, but a piece of a past I knew nothing about. Daniel looked at me and said softly, "In the last few weeks my mother often repeated a phrase." "Which phrase?" I asked. He swallowed. "She always said: 'If Paolo answers one day, I'll know he stayed the same person.'" I felt a chill run down my spine.
"How could she say that? She didn't know me at all." Daniel didn't answer immediately. He looked at the envelope in my hands. "Maybe she knew you better than you think." I looked at my name on the paper and realized I had to open it. But the moment I was about to tear the edge of the envelope, I saw something on the back. A date. A date from almost thirty years before. And underneath were just five words that took my breath away:
"For the son I never found."
