The words opened up a world I’d left behind long ago—a world with my mother newly gone, and questions and images and suspicions and grief. I felt like I’d stepped onto a stage, and the set was my life, circa ten years ago. And it was all colored over in crimson.

I saw the word recordings, maroon and royal blue. There were recordings of Dad’s interviews. I laid the papers down and opened the envelope again, holding it up so I could peer inside. Sure enough, there were two tapes. I tipped the envelope over and dumped them into my lap. One slid off my thigh and landed with a rattle on the tile floor. I stared at it.

Dad’s voice would be on that tape. Fresh after his wife was murdered. How would he sound? Devastated? Bewildered?

Guilty?

I picked up the cassette and turned it over in my hands. I didn’t know what I expected—for it to feel strange, to feel telling? It felt like plastic. Plastic that I couldn’t listen to because who owned a cassette player anymore?

Dad did.

As far as I knew, he still owned one. The question wasn’t whether I could find anything to listen to them on; the question was whether I could force myself to listen at all. I felt light-headed and sweaty and a little bit gutted and oh so confused.

I stood, gathered up the file and cassettes, and took them out to my desk drawer, cramming them in with the black notebook where I’d kept Peyton’s letter. I didn’t want to listen when I knew I had to leave soon. What if it completely shattered me and I couldn’t leave at all? I would want to be alone if I was a hot mess of tears and snot and bitterness, not at the community center with an audience. I would wait until I had some extended alone time, swipe Dad’s cassette player, and listen until I had the answers I wanted.

I BEAT CHRIS to the Waller Recreational Center by ten minutes. He pulled up eating a sandwich.

I waited for him on a bench outside the center. I’d been watching the comings and goings, but because I had no idea who I was looking for, it was a pretty fruitless endeavor. Everyone could have been Heriberto Abana. Or no one could have been him, for all I knew.

Chris plopped onto the bench next to me, finishing up the final corner of his sandwich. “Sorry I’m late,” he said. He uncapped a bottle of soda, swigged it, and stifled a belch. “You been here long?”

I shook my head. “Not really.”

“What kind of trouble have you been into since I last saw you? Do I even want to know?”

I chewed the inside of my lip. “No trouble. Just hanging at home like a good girl. Aren’t you proud?”