“I can let you hear it.” I gave her the login to the encrypted drive.

Eighty-seven audio files waited in the queue.

She opened the most recent one — and across the room, the color drained entirely from my mother’s face, because she knew, before it played, what was on it.

She had spent three years telling us and everyone else that her silence was fear.

She had forgotten that silence is not the only thing a recording captures.

Chapter 7 — The Voice on the Tape