So, how did this recording end up in Minnie’s cabin?

Could Mom have mailed it? Maybe as a strange kind of olive branch?

I stand to pace the main room of the cabin as I think.

No. Mom definitely said she didn’t contact her mother until she was pregnant with Abram, and that was after she graduated.

An idea occurs, the possibility of it sending an uncomfortable shock of denial through me. But I have to know.

I pause the tape and flick the settings over to FM. Static. I scan through all the channels, and I get nothing. Same with AM.

But that’s what I expected. I only hoped differently.

After carrying all my music around in a smartphone for so long, the boom box seems overly heavy as I lug it out the back door. Bruce lounges on the porch, soaking up the sun, and barely gives a twitch as I hurry past him.

The air smells like damp earth baking in the sun. A chill rides the breeze, raising the hair on my exposed arms.

I ignore the beautiful hints of autumn, focusing on my destination and what it might reveal.

Climbing into the tree house while clutching the boom box is awkward, but despite swaying a few times, I manage to get both it and myself through the entry in the floor without damage.

Luckily, I got tired of unplugging and plugging it back in and bought some batteries.

I sit cross-legged on the old wooden floor, hesitating with my fingers poised on the buttons. The stereo seems to gaze back at me, its speakers like wide bug eyes.

Tempting me.

Mocking me.

Shaming me.

I flip the on switch.

Static.

There’s a tremor in my fingers as I press the button to scan for stations. A second goes by before, suddenly, a voice spills out.

“… the best deal in downtown Denver! Come get your new car⁠—”

The stereo scans again, landing on a station playing Ariana Grande’s latest hit. It scans again, finding a classical music station. It scans again. And again. At some point, a set of familiar numbers flashes on the little digital screen.

I attended the University of Denver too, transferring there for my sophomore year and on. Occasionally, I turned on the school’s radio station to see what they were playing.

Today, whoever the jockey is has chosen some classic rock, but I don’t bother to focus on the lyrics.

My heart cracks, little fissures in the organ spiking like splinters in my chest.

Because in this moment, I realize my theory is truth.

In the same way that I’ve been making this tedious climb to get service, so did my grandmother more than thirty years ago. A woman too proud to mend fences with her daughter crawled into a tree house just to hear that daughter’s voice.

I press the Off button, needing silence to deal with my realization.