Our home phone service was linked directly to Daniel’s main cell account through our shared online account.

I sat down in the swivel chair, picked up the plastic handset, and pressed the menu key to bring up the incoming call history.

The screen listed four calls from the main switchboard of St.

Jude Community Hospital, dated October fifteenth, October twenty-second, October twenty-ninth, and November second.

Next to each entry, a small icon showed a red diagonal slash through a speaker.

I went to the trash folder in the digital answering machine, where deleted messages were kept for thirty days before being erased for good.