“Goodbye, Toby. I love you, too.” I let the message play out in static for a minute before it cuts off. She must’ve not hung up the phone after she left the message. I hit rewind and listen to it again. And again. Her voice sounds weary and deconstructed, like she’d succumbed. I know she recorded this moments before she pulled the trigger, but it also sounds like she means it. Like she really did love me. She never said it before, but I know now that it’s probably the last thing she said. “I love you, too, Mom,” I say to the silence as I push the off button on the answering machine.
