For twenty years, my mother made sure the homeless boy living behind our house never went hungry. After her funeral, he took both my hands in his and told me, “Before she d:ie:d, she BEGGED ME TO KEEP HER SECRET FROM YOU.”

Gabriel swallowed hard before answering my question.

“She knew you would come back to settle the house after the funeral,” Gabriel explained softly. “She was terrified you might refuse to speak to me, so she made you promise not to abandon me, knowing it was the only way to force us into the same room without confessing her secret herself.”

I wanted to hate only Gabriel because that would have been so much easier for me to digest. Instead, my anger spread evenly between the dead and the living.

I carried the heavy metal box inside our old house while Gabriel followed quietly. Dust covered the entire kitchen, but Mom’s old apple-shaped wall clock was still ticking steadily.

Gabriel set my pot of stew on the counter and moved toward the front door.

“You should probably listen to these recordings without me here,” Gabriel offered quietly.“No,” I commanded, stopping him in his tracks. “You waited eleven years to deliver this, so you can wait through one recording with me right now.”