The stereo sits quietly, and I stare back at it.

This was all that Minnie Gunner had for family in the last years of her life. No one visiting her. No one calling her.

She only had the voice of her daughter, broadcasted from miles away.

The pain of this knowledge makes my muscles cramp and my head ache. I curl up on the floor of the tree house, folding under the weight of my sorrow and regret.

Whenever I thought of my grandmother in the past, I assumed she didn’t want to know any of us. That she was fine on her own. That family didn’t mean anything to her.

But I know different now. A woman who doesn’t care does not keep recordings of her daughter’s voice.

How many more tapes in that box are from a time after Mom left? How many times did Minnie crawl up into this tree house to listen to her estranged daughter’s broadcasts?

“Oh God. I’m so sorry.” I moan the words into my hands, feeling the tears coming, the sobs rising from deep in my chest.

What kept her away? But I think I know.

The river. I can imagine her drowning in it, just like I do. The darkness of the water a barrier between her and the person she loved most in the world.

What a horrible joke—for this woman to have been a stranger to me my whole life and only through her death am I getting to know her. The items in her house reveal glimpses of a strong, capable woman, who stored away love for her family the same way she jarred preserves. With dedication and so that only she knew what was contained within.

I’m not sure how long I let myself cry for her. It’s more than the loss of a person that hurts me. It’s the loss of the one person in my family who I see myself in.

Each piece of Minnie I discover holds a sense of familiarity, as if the same set of tools were used to create us both.

And I cry for the loss of love.

I could have loved her. I know it. If only I had gotten a chance to know her. If I had taken that chance.

But none of us took it.

Minnie didn’t reach out to us, but we also didn’t reach out to her.

Mom wasn’t a gatekeeper. She never denied us access to our grandmother.

“Why didn’t I know you?” I whisper to the boom box, like it will transport my message to whatever plane of existence my grandmother floats in now. I’ve never been religious, but I can see the appeal. Wouldn’t it be nice to know that I haven’t lost my chance to know my grandma? To love her?

But all I have is this life, and Minnie is gone from it.