The four-minute voice note

Lucía's voice note has been on my phone for eleven days. Four minutes and seven seconds, with a little photo of her in sunglasses that doesn't even look like her anymore. Every time I open the chat it's there with its tiny triangle, waiting like a patient who knows he's not the most urgent case.

It's not that I don't want to hear her. It's that Lucía sends voice notes the way other people write letters: she starts with "no, but let me tell you quickly" and two minutes later she's on the move, the new boss and something my mom said in December 2019. I'd have to sit down, and I only have three sitting-down hours, which I owe to sleep.

What happens when you put it off

First you put it off for lack of time. Then because so much time has passed that the note has become something bigger. On day five I answered with a "hahaha I'll tell you later!" that answered nothing. She sent a heart. Lucía always sends the heart; it's her way of saying "I saw it and I won't make a scene," which is worse than a scene.

Andrea, who finds out about everything, texted me separately: "Have you listened to Lucía yet?" I said yes. It wasn't entirely a lie. I'd heard the first second, the one where she breathes in before talking.

The five o'clock grocery run

Today I went out for my five o'clock grocery run, face still creased from the pillow, earbuds in. We were walking past the bicycle repair shop when, without thinking, I tapped the triangle.

The first thing I heard was the background: a blender, a door, someone yelling something at a dog. Then Lucía, very close to the microphone, laughing at herself. I stopped in front of the orange stand on the corner and the man asked if I was buying. I said one moment.

It was nothing serious. That was the first thing that took a weight off me. She was telling me she'd cut her own hair and it came out uneven, that her neighbor had lent her an enormous pot to make pozole, and that out of nowhere she'd missed our childhood bedroom, the one with three beds and our feet against the wall. She said: "I don't know why I'm telling you this and not Andrea. I think it's because you don't interrupt me." She went quiet for three seconds, and I could feel her voice settling.

The truth is I do interrupt her, just in my head, and she doesn't know. This time I couldn't, because it was a recording.

Reply

I answered from the sidewalk, with the bag of oranges hanging from one finger. Not a text: a voice note. It came out eleven seconds long, which in my family counts as a telegram. I said "I heard you, I love you, your hair is surely fine, send me a photo." I deleted it twice before sending, because it sounded like a nurse giving instructions.

Forty seconds later the photo arrived: half a head, sideways, one lock definitely shorter than the other, and her sticking out her tongue. And underneath, with no words, a heart.

I got home with the oranges, sat on the kitchen floor without taking off my sneakers, and played it again from the start, blender and all.