"I called two times. And then I did a message."
"I know."
"Did you hear it?"
He took his phone out of his shirt pocket. It was warm from his body. He opened the app with the cartoon fox on it, and there they were, the two little gray bars with their little play triangles, 0:06 and 0:04, and the date and time beside them. He had looked at them in seat 14C. He had swiped them away.
"No," he said. "I didn't. I'm going to listen right now. Is that okay? Do you want me to?"
She nodded.
He pressed the first one.
There was rustling, the fox face against a sleeve, and then breathing, close, too close to the microphone, and then his daughter's voice, low and fast, the voice of a person speaking in a library or a church or a house where someone is asleep on the couch.
"Daddy, it's me. Mommy has the grape juice smell. It's number one on the paper. Call me back. Okay bye."
He pressed the second one.
More rustling. A thump, like a door. Breathing. Then, in a whisper so small it was mostly air: "I hid them. I'm not getting in the car. Bye."