Chapter 3 - The Tape
We found an old cassette player in a storage box in the garage.
Clara tried twice to stop me from pressing PLAY.
I did it anyway.
Static filled the kitchen.
Then my father's voice came through the speaker.
Harold Carter. Calm. Controlled. The same voice that used to tell me a man protected his family by making hard decisions.
"Lily found the ledger," he said on the tape. "That makes her dangerous."
Another voice answered.
Owen.
"And William?"
My father's reply made my skin crawl.
"He saw too much. Mercer can handle the memory problem."
I stopped breathing.
A younger Clara spoke next.
"You said nobody would get hurt."
The room went silent except for the tape turning.
My wife started crying.
On the recording, my father snapped, "Give me Lily's letter. If William reads it, you will lose your mother, your scholarship, and whatever future you think you have with my son."
Young Clara sobbed.
Then paper rustled.
I stared at the woman I had shared a bed with for eleven years.
"You were there."
"I was nineteen."
"You were there."
Lily closed her eyes.
The tape continued.
A third man spoke. Dr. Samuel Mercer, the family physician who treated my head injury the night Lily disappeared.
"One heavy dose after the concussion. He'll wake confused. Reinforce the fall story and don't let anyone contradict it."
My stomach turned.
I remembered waking in my childhood bedroom while my father told me I had slipped in the storm and Lily had run away.
Everyone repeated it until it became my memory.
I stopped the tape.
"How long have you known she was alive?"
Clara looked at Lily, then at me.
"I learned she survived twelve years ago."
I almost laughed because the truth was too ugly for anger.
"Twelve years?"
"I didn't know where she was. I got a postcard with no return address. It said, 'You helped them bury me.' I started looking. Quietly."
"And you never told me?"
"Your father was still watching you."
"My father is dead."
Lily opened her eyes.
"No, William."
She reached into the pocket of her torn coat and pulled out a recent photograph.
My father stood outside a medical building, older and thinner, but unmistakably alive.
A date stamp marked the corner.
Eight months ago.
May you like
Lily pushed the photo toward me.
"Your father never died."
