“Ah, Daniel,” Lenora said. “Still obeying a d/e/@/d man?”
“He trusted me.”
“He used you.”
Daniel ended the call.
I snatched the phone back.
“Why did you do that?”
“Because she wants you emotional.”
“I am emotional! A woman who may be my grandmother just told me my mother is alive.”
“And Lenora has lied professionally for half a century,” Thomas said.
“What if this isn’t a lie?”
Neither man answered.
I looked at the cassette tape in my hand.
“We play this.”
The cabin had an old tape deck beneath the bookshelf. Daniel cleaned the heads while Thomas connected the power. The machine groaned when he inserted the cassette.
At first, there was only static.
Then a woman began to speak.
“My name is Evelyn Grace Bennett.”
Her voice was soft and breathless.
My legs weakened.
“I am making this recording on October seventeenth. Claire is asleep beside me. She has a fever, but Elaine says it is going down.”
