Liam found the old phone in a shoebox buried beneath a pile of childhood drawings.

He hadn’t planned on finding anything when he returned to clean out his mother’s apartment two weeks after the funeral. Just dust, grief, and memories he wasn’t ready to confront. But the box in the closet caught his eye—a red Nike lid half-torn, stuffed with old notebooks, ticket stubs, and at the bottom, a pink flip phone.

His mother’s.

He stared at it for a long moment before flipping it open. Surprisingly, it still had battery.

And there it was—1 New Voicemail.

He sat down slowly, his pulse quickening.

He hadn’t heard her voice since the hospital.

Liam had always had a complicated relationship with his mother.

He was her only child, born when she was just twenty. His father left when he was three, and his mother—Rachel—raised him alone in a tiny apartment above a laundromat.

She worked nights as a nurse, slept during the day, and somehow still managed to show up at every school play and parent-teacher meeting. But as Liam grew older, they clashed constantly—over grades, over curfews, over his desire to move far away for college.

“You just want to leave me behind,” she said once, not as an accusation but as a fact.

And he did.

He moved 1,000 miles away, graduated, became a software engineer, rarely visited.

She never said she was hurt. She just called less.

Until one day, she didn’t call at all.

---

The cancer came fast. By the time Liam returned, she was in hospice.

They had six days.

He sat by her bed, holding her fragile hand, watching the soft rise and fall of her chest. Sometimes she was lucid, smiling and recounting stories from when he was little. Other times she called him "Charlie," her brother who died young.

On the last morning, she looked at him and whispered, “I hope you find what matters, Liam.”

Those were her final words.

Now, staring at the blinking notification on her old phone, Liam didn’t know if he could handle hearing her voice again.

But his thumb moved anyway.

He pressed Play.

The message was scratchy, left exactly one day before she passed.

"Hey baby... I know you probably won’t check this right away, but I had to leave it somewhere. Just in case. I—I know we haven’t always said everything we should have."

There was a pause, static crackling.

"You know I never expected to do this alone. Raising you. But you... Liam, you gave me a reason to wake up every day. Even when I was tired. Even when I felt like I had nothing left."

Liam felt tears sting the corners of his eyes.

"I was hard on you sometimes. I didn’t want you to end up like me. Stuck. So when you left, I told myself it meant I did something right. You were brave enough to chase something bigger."

The message wavered. Her voice softened.

"I’m proud of you. I hope you hear that, no matter when you listen. And I hope... I hope you don’t forget the little boy who used to dance in the kitchen with me to Stevie Wonder."

He let out a shaky breath.

"There’s a key taped under the silverware drawer. It’s for the locker at the train station. Something I kept for you. Maybe it’ll make sense someday. I love you. Always."

The message ended with a beep.

And then silence.

Liam sat frozen, the phone pressed to his chest.

The locker?

The next morning, he drove to the train station downtown. He hadn’t set foot there in years—since he left for college. The lockers were still there, though most were dusty and unused.

He pulled out the key from beneath the silverware drawer that night, just like she’d said.

Locker 108.

It opened with a soft click.

Inside was a single box. Neatly sealed. His name written across the top in her handwriting.

He sat on a nearby bench and opened it.

Inside: a stack of letters, bundles of printed photos, and a small velvet box.

He opened the letters first.

They were all written on his birthdays.

One for each year since he turned five.

"Dear Liam, you lost your first tooth today. You cried until I showed you a dollar under your pillow."

"You’re eight now. You built a robot out of cardboard. I still have it in the closet."

"Seventeen. You didn’t come home last night. I worried all night but didn’t call because I knew you needed space. I hope you know I still waited up."

Tears rolled down Liam’s cheeks as he read.

His mother had been writing to him every year. Capturing memories. Regrets. Hopes.

All stored away. All waiting for this moment.

He looked at the photos—pictures of him as a baby, then a toddler, then growing up. He had forgotten some of these moments. But she hadn’t.

At the bottom of the box was the velvet case.

He opened it slowly.

Inside was a gold locket.

He recognized it immediately—it had belonged to his grandmother, something his mom wore when he was little and then tucked away.

Inside the locket were two tiny pictures: one of Liam as a baby, and one of his mother, holding him, laughing.

Behind the photos, a folded note:

"You are the best thing I ever made. Please never forget that."

That night, Liam returned to the apartment and stood in the middle of the empty living room.

For the first time in years, he didn’t feel alone.

He sat on the floor, the locket in his hand, the letters spread out around him like pieces of a life he was only now beginning to understand.

He didn’t know what came next.

But he knew one thing for sure—he would keep her voice with him. Always.

And maybe someday, he’d leave behind his own letters.

For someone else to find.