By Phoebe Sozou
Editors: Elim Chan and Alloe Mak

Please leave a message at the tone.

I don’t know if you can hear me, it’s pretty loud in here. Sorry I missed you, sorry I couldn’t find a better time to do this, sorry I wrote you a letter two years ago but haven’t touched it since. I guess I want to say that I wish you were here, even if I never found out what you being here would look like.

Sometimes I wonder if I’ve met you already. Mum had blonde hair long enough to braid when she was a kid. Would you have had blonde hair? It makes me sad that you’ve probably never had someone braid it. I would do it for you if you were my sister. If we’d gotten the chance.

I don’t know if you can hear me; it’s been so long. If you were my sister, we’d probably fight. I think that’s normal, though, and I wouldn’t be able to stay mad at you anyway—you’d have Grandma’s eyes. At least, Mum has Grandma’s eyes, so I assume you would too. Maybe you wouldn’t. Maybe you’d have eyes like Dad, like honey. Or maybe you’d have eyes like no one else in the entire world. I wonder if you can see at all where you are now. I wonder what you see in me.

Do you like clementines? Dad buys them every winter. I hate the way the peels stick under my nails but I love the smell, and I love the way each piece turns to sunlight on my tongue like the summer’s here to stay this time. Are you hungry? If you were my sister we could trade—my greens for your raisins, or something else you’d make a face at if Mum put it on your plate. Maybe we’d swap candy on Halloween. Maybe I’d let you take more of mine than you wanted to give. Maybe you wouldn’t realize until the two of us were all grown up and sipping tea on a haphazardly scheduled Thursday afternoon.
Maybe I could be good for you.

Mum loves people like she knows it’s going to kill her someday. She never forgot about you, I need you to know that. She talks to you; do you talk back? Do you know how? Have you memorized the crinkles at the corners of her eyes? She drives without her glasses sometimes, it scares me to death. Does it scare you too? Sometimes I wonder if you’d love me as much as I think I’d love you.

I don’t know if you can hear me; it’s been so long. I might not know if you were my sister, either, but that’s okay—drop me a line, an ominous sign, a handprint on the window. Anything. I don’t think I need to be heard to be happy, but I hope I hear from you.

Click.