I wasn’t ready to manage other people’s reactions.
Greg stayed where he was. Michael reached into his jacket pocket and set something on the table.
A voice recorder. Small, worn around the edges, the kind kids used for school projects in the early 2000s. The plastic was scuffed on one corner, and there was a small sticker on the back, mostly peeled off, that I recognized instantly.
A paw print.
Sarah put them on everything.
“That’s… that’s Sarah’s,” I gasped.
“She had it with her that night,” Michael revealed. “It was found at the scene. I’ve had it since then.”
Michael reached into his jacket pocket and set something on the table.
“You kept this from me?”
“Yes. I didn’t know if hearing her voice would help you. Or break you again,” Michael said. “And I was afraid of getting it wrong.”
I picked the recorder up. My thumb found the play button the way your hands find things they’ve been waiting to do. And I pressed it.
There was a second of static. Then Sarah’s voice came through the small speaker, clear and wrenchingly alive:
“Dad said he’d fix my bike brakes this weekend… but I think he’s gonna forget again. It’s okay, though. He always makes it up with pancakes.”
A small laugh. God, that laugh. Then the recording clicked off.
