My son died two years ago. Last night, at 3:07 a.m., he called me and whispered: “Mom… let me in. I’m cold.”

My son died two years ago. Last night, at 3:07 am, he called me and whispered, “Mom… open the door. I’m cold.”

At 3:07 in the morning, the sound of the telephone woke me up.

It wasn’t just any tone. I had saved that ringtone for only one person, the only name that still hurt me to pronounce aloud: Elias, my son.

I opened my eyes in the darkness and saw the blue glow of the cell phone on the small table. The screen was shaking, or maybe it was my hand.

“Elias ”

I felt my chest close like a rusty door. I sat there, motionless, my mouth dry. Elias had died two years ago. I organized a memorial mass myself, without his body, because the sea doesn’t give back what it swallows. I hugged his photo myself until I had no tears left. So… why was his name there, calling to me in the middle of the night?

I answered with a clumsy finger, as if the device were burning hot.

-Well?

A second of silence. And then, a deep, hoarse voice, so familiar it broke my heart in two.

—Mom… open the door. It’s very cold out here.

The air caught in my throat. That voice… I heard that voice thousands of times: when I was a child and he asked me for more atole, when as a young man he told me “don’t worry”, when as an adult he hugged me as if I were the one who needed protection.

“Elias?” I managed to whisper, and my own voice sounded foreign to me.

But the call was abruptly cut off.

I kept the phone pressed to my ear, hearing nothing. An icy sweat trickled down the back of my neck, trickling down my back. I got up without turning on the light and crossed the long hallway of my house, a mansion far too big for two women and a memory.

I am Elena Montiel, Mexican, 64 years old, a widow for some time now, living on the outskirts of Guadalajara. After my son’s death, I thought I would spend my final days in silence, with the echo of his footsteps haunting the rooms. But that night, the silence was broken.

I knocked on my daughter-in-law’s bedroom door.

—Valentina! Valentina, open up!

The door burst open. Valentina Rojas, my daughter-in-law, appeared with disheveled hair and puffy eyes from lack of sleep.

—What’s happening now, Mom?

I grabbed her arm, panting.

—Elias called me. He said… he said he’s at the door. That he’s cold.

Valentina frowned.

—She had another nightmare. Go back to bed, Mom.

And then the doorbell rang. Long. Insistent.

Valentina froze.