Carrie missed the mornings when she would awake to the sound of her middle sister Vanessa playing her clarinet. It never bothered Carrie that she had been disturbed from her sleep as Carrie never thought of being awoken by her sister's clarinet playing as being a disturbance of any sort. Vanessa was good, more than good in fact. She was talented and Carrie always supported her sister in all and any ways that she could, though Vanessa has not played her clarinet even once since the day of her eldest sister's funeral.
Angela, the second of the four sisters, was at Carrie's side the whole night prior to the morning when Carrie's life came to an end. With it being one minute to eight on that horribly upsetting morning, Carrie passed away with all three of her sisters and her father having got back to be at her side.
Six months after Carrie's death, her father awoke one morning to the sound of his mobile phone going off. Christian received a phone call from a withheld number. He was quick to answer despite that and the fact that he was extremely tired and had only just woken.
'Hello' spoke Christian before he had brought the phone all the way round to his ear.
'Hi dad, can you hear me?' spoke a faint female voice.
There was a lot of interference, and the sound of the voice was extremely soft, but Christian was sure that it was his eldest daughter on the phone.
'Carrie ... is that you?'
There was an attempt at a reply, but Christian could not make out anything else that may have been said. The interference became too much to the point that the call was lost. At this point, Christian noticed that the time was coming up to eight o'clock. He called his eldest daughter's name down the phone twice more, but it was hopeless. If somehow Carrie really got to make a phone call to her dad, then she was now gone and there was no way of getting her back. It couldn't have been her, could it?
There was no way that any of this could have happened; there could have been no way that Carrie could have just phoned her father. The dead don't get to make phone calls. Christian's head told him that it was impossible though his heart suggested otherwise.
Nadia, the youngest of the sisters, knocked on her dad's bedroom door and entered. Christian sat up in his bed, wiping away a tear from his cheek when his little ten-year-old entered clutching her favourite teddy bear.
'Are you OK daddy?'
'Yes honey, I am alright.'
'Who were you talking to on the phone?'
Nadia climbed onto her father's bed and sat next to him.
'Oh, that was no one; it was a bad connection, probably a wrong number.'
'I heard you calling Carrie's name.'
'That was just me being a little bit silly. There was a voice on the phone. I could barely hear it. It was a lady and for a second there I thought it was Carrie. Silly me, huh?'
'It is alright daddy; I miss her too.'
Nadia gave her dad a kiss on the cheek and then a hug before she climbed off the bed. She was about to leave the room when her dad would ask a question.
'Hey, that teddy you have there, is that one of Carrie's old teddies?'
'Yep, she left him out for me last night.'
Last night? Nadia went to go get herself ready for school before Christian could inquire any further.
***
Colin sat by his living room window, looking out and watching the world pass by when a man dressed in a military uniform came walking up the garden path. It took a second or two for Colin to realize it, but he was sure he recognized this man. When he went to the front door his realization was confirmed.
