Chapter 5 - The Tapes in the Attic
We didn't go back to the cemetery that night.
The police tape cordoned off our backyard like a crime scene, while federal agents packed the frozen vials into hazardous containment trucks.
Neighbors stood on their porches in bathrobes, staring through the fog as the sirens finally faded into the distance.
Our living room was freezing, the back door splintered and drafty, but none of us cared to light the fireplace.
Daniel, Theo, and I sat on the damp hardwood floor around the coffee table.
Sarah plugged the small memory card into Jack’s laptop and connected the portable projector to our blank living room wall.
The projector fan whirred to life, casting a bright rectangular beam of light across the peeling wallpaper.
The screen flickered for three seconds before Jack’s smiling face filled the entire room.
He was sitting in his hospital bed, his head bald and his skin pale, but his bright hazel eyes were dancing with that sharp, mischievous energy we loved.
He was wearing a pair of cheap plastic sunglasses and holding a rolled-up cardboard paper towel tube like a trumpet.
“Testing, testing, one two three,” Jack’s voice boomed through the laptop speakers, sounding so close I instinctively reached out to touch the light on the wall.
“If Theo is projecting this right now, it means Sterling is currently sharing a holding cell with someone named Bubba.”
Theo buried his face in his hands, laughing through a torrent of hot tears.
“Mom, Dad, stop crying,” Jack said on the screen, pointing a thin finger straight at the lens as if he could see through the years.
“Seriously, Dad, I know you’re doing that thing where you rub your forehead until it turns bright red. Cut it out.”
Daniel let out a wet, choked laugh and dropped his hands to his lap, shaking his head in disbelief.
“I made this video three days before I lost the use of my left leg,” Jack explained, his smile softening into something profoundly gentle.
“I needed to explain why Theo wore that red dress, because I know half our church probably had an aneurysm when he walked down the aisle.”
The video cut abruptly to a darker room—Ward 4B.
Jack was holding the camera in secret, the lens pointed through the cracked door of his hospital room into the hallway.
We could see nurses in unmarked hazmat gear wheeling metal carts filled with black trash bags.
Then the camera turned toward a corner of the ward where a young girl with sunken eyes and tangled dark hair was sitting in a wheelchair.
She was wearing a vibrant, bright red dress that looked far too large for her tiny frame.
“That was Clara,” Jack’s recorded voice whispered over the footage.
“Her parents died in a car crash when she was nine.”
“She had no one to sign her consent forms, so the hospital appointed a state conservator who took kickbacks from Sterling’s firm.”
“They tested Batch 07 on her for eight months.”
“She told me that her grandmother had bought her that red dress for her eighth-grade graduation, and whenever she wore it, she felt like she had armor on.”
“She said death was afraid of bright colors because death only knows how to hide in the dark.”
The video cut back to Jack sitting in his bed, his eyes glassy with unshed tears.
“Clara passed away on October twelfth at four in the morning, Dad,” Jack said quietly.
“They took her out through the service elevator like she was medical waste.”
“Sterling thought nobody noticed.”
“He thought because she had no family, nobody would ever ask where Clara Higgins went.”
“He didn't realize that in Ward 4B, we were all each other had.”
“We swore an oath on that red dress that whoever survived the longest would make sure the world learned her name.”
“I didn't survive, Dad.”
“The cancer beat me to the finish line.”
“So I passed the armor to Theo.”
Theo pulled the torn red sleeve tighter around his skinny shoulders, rocking back and forth on the floor.
“Jack gave me that dress the night before they transferred him to hospice,” Theo choked out.
“He told me: 'Theo, you’re the bravest coward I’ve ever met.'”
“'You’re terrified of public speaking, you’re terrified of my dad’s temper, and you’re terrified of standing out.'”
“'So you’re the only person who can pull this off.'”
Daniel leaned forward, his rough hand reaching out to touch Theo’s trembling shoulder.
My husband, who had spent his life hiding his emotions behind silence and hard labor, pulled the teenage boy into his chest and held him tight.
“You did good, son,” Daniel whispered into Theo’s hair.
“You did so damn good.”
On the wall, Jack took off his silly plastic sunglasses and looked directly into the camera.
“Now comes the hard part, Mom and Dad,” Jack said, his expression becoming serious.
“The freezer in the shed had the evidence to destroy Sterling.”
“But the wooden cigar box holds something else.”
May you like
“Lift the velvet lining at the bottom of the box, Dad.”
“It’s time you found out who really paid for my funeral.”
