Chapter 5 - THE AUDIO
The audio files were worse.
Each had labels:
RAGE_01.
RAGE_02.
RAGE_03.
Michael had heard several before.
Vanessa sent them when he traveled.
They always began with Emily yelling.
“GET OUT OF MY ROOM!”
“STOP TOUCHING ME!”
“I HATE THIS HOUSE!”
Once:
“I WISH YOU WOULD JUST DISAPPEAR!”
Michael had confronted Emily after hearing that one.
She denied saying it.
Then cried when he played the recording.
Michael had told her:
“You can’t deny your own voice.”
Now Emily said:
“Play ten seconds before it.”
Michael opened the cloud version history.
The audio file showed:
trimmed.
Original length:
2 minutes 11 seconds.
Saved clip:
31 seconds.
The original was still recoverable from an automatic device backup.
Michael played it.
Vanessa:
“Give me your tablet.”
Emily:
“No.”
Vanessa:
“You lost privacy when you lied.”
Emily:
“I didn’t lie.”
Vanessa:
“I read your messages.”
Emily:
“GET OUT OF MY ROOM!”
Then:
the familiar clip.
Michael stopped playback.
Vanessa said:
“She still screamed.”
“Yes.”
“I never said she didn’t have a reason.”
Michael turned.
“You sent me thirty-one seconds and called it ‘Emily threatening me.’”
“She was threatening me.”
“You removed everything you said.”
Vanessa’s face hardened.
“I was documenting behavior.”
Emily whispered:
“You were editing me.”
One of the audio clips had fooled Michael more than any other.
He remembered it clearly.
Emily screaming:
“DON’T TOUCH ME!”
Then a crash.
Then Vanessa saying:
“I’m not doing anything to you.”
Michael had called from a hotel and demanded Emily apologize.
The original recording now revealed the missing beginning.
Vanessa had entered Emily’s room holding a trash bag.
She said:
“You don’t deserve half this stuff.”
Emily:
“What are you doing?”
Vanessa:
“Cleaning.”
Emily:
“Those are Mom’s things.”
The items belonged to Emily’s late biological mother:
a scarf,
two paperback novels,
a jewelry box with no valuable jewelry.
Vanessa picked up the box.
Emily grabbed for it.
Vanessa said:
“Let go.”
Then came:
“DON’T TOUCH ME!”
The crash was the jewelry box hitting the floor.
Michael stopped playback.
He remembered telling Emily:
“Vanessa is allowed to organize the house.”
He had never known what she was organizing.
May you like
The objects themselves were worth almost nothing.
Their meaning was not.
