The house still smelled like their father: pipe smoke and cold coffee. Mara, Theo, and Diane stood in the hallway together for the first time in nine years. Nobody spoke. Then Theo bumped the old record cabinet and the back panel slid loose. Behind it sat a hidden shelf, and on it were dozens of cassette tapes, each one labeled in their father's tight handwriting.

Diane stepped back with her hands up. "I don't want to know what's on those. He lied to us our whole lives. Why give him one more chance to talk?" She turned for the door. "Box them up, throw them out, I don't care. I'm leaving."

Diane made it to her car before Mara caught up, holding a single tape. "This one has your name on it," Mara said through the window. Diane stared at it for a long moment, then turned off the engine. "Fine," she said. "But we listen in daylight, not in that awful house."

They sat in a park and played it. Their father admitted he'd always been hardest on Diane because she reminded him of their mother. "I punished you for her leaving," he said. "You were a child, and I blamed you for a grown woman's choice." Diane let out a breath she'd held for thirty years. "At least he finally said it," she whispered.