Start With This: Episode 3

There was nothing in the box worth saving, but that was my mother. She specifically had sought out a house with a massive attic, so that box after box gathered from behind the grocery store could be filled, taped shut, labeled with a date, and catalogued away. It was like the Library of Congress, if their only collection was of a family of five who lived on Willow Road.

This box in particular was full of cassette tapes, the cheap ones that you could at one time get in bulk at the dollar store. I didn’t know her to archive conversations, but apparently she did. There was a tape recorder in there too. I placed one, labeled 9–19–91, into the tray and pressed play.

“Is there anything you don’t know?”

Immediately, I shut it off. It felt like an invasion of privacy to listen in. Can you invade the privacy of the dead? I wondered. Does the concept of privacy exist in the afterworld?

I shrugged and pushed play again. A warbled sound came out, and I couldn’t make out any words. Then the audio returned.

“Can you be a little more specific?”

This time, the conversation broke to static.

“We went out for my sister’s birthday two weeks ago.

Static.

“I had a nice time.”

Static.

“It was her birthday, after all.”

Static.

“I understand that.”

Static.

“Yes, I understand. But things have a way of working out.”

Static.

“Fine, what do you want to do?”

Static.

“Hmm.”

The exchange made me feel awful, even though I only ever heard my mom’s side. The tension in her voice made me incredibly uncomfortable. I looked at the box, which must have had fifty more of these cassettes, each labeled with different dates, all between April 1991 and August 1992. A relatively short-lived project, all things considered.

Maybe she listened to this tape too, and realized she was building a monument to marital strife. Or maybe she ran out of tapes.