The air smells like damp earth baking in the sun.A chill rides the breeze, raising the hair on my exposed arms.
I ignore the beautiful hints of autumn, focusing on my destination and what it might reveal.
Climbing into the tree house while clutching the boom box is awkward, but despite swaying a few times, I manage to get both it and myself through the entry in the floor without damage.
Luckily, I got tired of unplugging and plugging it back in and bought some batteries.
I sit cross-legged on the old wooden floor, hesitating with my fingers poised on the buttons.The stereo seems to gaze back at me, its speakers like wide bug eyes.
Tempting me.
Mocking me.
Shaming me.
I flip the on switch.
Static.
There’s a tremor in my fingers as I press the button to scan for stations.A second goes by before, suddenly, a voice spills out.
“… the best deal in downtown Denver!Come get your new car?—”
The stereo scans again, landing on a station playing Ariana Grande’s latest hit.It scans again, finding a classical music station.It scans again.And again.At some point, a set of familiar numbers flashes on the little digital screen.
I attended the University of Denver too, transferring there for my sophomore year and on.Occasionally, I turned on the school’s radio station to see what they were playing.
Today, whoever the jockey is has chosen some classic rock, but I don’t bother to focus on the lyrics.
My heart cracks, little fissures in the organ spiking like splinters in my chest.
Because in this moment, I realize my theory is truth.
In the same way that I’ve been making this tedious climb to get service, so did my grandmother more than thirty years ago.A woman too proud to mend fences with her daughter crawled into a tree house just to hear that daughter’s voice.
I press the Off button, needing silence to deal with my realization.
The stereo sits quietly, and I stare back at it.
This was all that Minnie Gunner had for family in the last years of her life.No one visiting her.No one calling her.
She only had the voice of her daughter, broadcasted from miles away.
The pain of this knowledge makes my muscles cramp and my head ache.I curl up on the floor of the tree house, folding under the weight of my sorrow and regret.
Whenever I thought of my grandmother in the past, I assumed she didn’t want to know any of us.That she was fine on her own.That family didn’t mean anything to her.
But I know different now.A woman who doesn’t care does not keep recordings of her daughter’s voice.
How many more tapes in that box are from a time after Mom left?How many times did Minnie crawl up into this tree house to listen to her estranged daughter’s broadcasts?
“Oh God.I’m so sorry.”I moan the words into my hands, feeling the tears coming, the sobs rising from deep in my chest.
What kept her away?But I think I know.
The river.I can imagine her drowning in it, just like I do.The darkness of the water a barrier between her and the person she loved most in the world.
What a horrible joke—for this woman to have been a stranger to me my whole life and only through her death am I getting to know her.The items in her house reveal glimpses of a strong, capable woman, who stored away love for her family the same way she jarred preserves.With dedication and so that only she knew what was contained within.
