My Three Houses Vanished Overnight

2: 2

2. The recorder gave up after only two sentences.

I hit play again and again. The screen stayed black.

Out of battery, probably.

Those two sentences kept circling in my head.

You can't trust a single person in this house.

Who did it mean?

My husband? My daughter?

But we'd been married more than thirty years.

My husband didn't talk much. A closed-up sort of man.

Still, he'd never once treated me badly.

And Aileen, well, there was nothing to say against her.

Every holiday she came home loaded with bags, and every school break she sent Jayden over to keep me company.

I looked down at the recorder in my hand again.

Maybe it was just a prank.

I couldn't remember ever recording anything like that.

Besides, AI these days could do almost anything.

Download some program off the internet, record a few lines, and it stitched a voice together.

Copying someone's voice was easy now.

I turned to the dresser and started hunting for the charging cable.

The recorder was an old model.

Its charging port didn't match the phones people used now.

I needed the special cable for it.

I pulled the drawers open one by one.

I was still bent over, digging through them, when I heard the front door open in the living room.

The moment my daughter came in, she called out, "Jayden, where's Grandma?"

Jayden answered in his little kid voice, "Grandma's in her room."

The door pushed open.

Aileen stood in the doorway, looking at the mess spread across the floor.

Her brow knit up at once.

"Mom, what are you tearing apart now?"

"You've gone through this whole place how many times already!"

I opened my mouth to say I was looking for the recorder's charging cable.

The words got to my lips, and I forced them back down.

Better to hold something back for now.

"Batteries. The remote in the living room died."

Aileen gave me a look, then casually pulled open the second drawer of the wardrobe.

She dug around twice and came out with a card of AAA batteries.

"See? Right here."

"You put them here yourself last time. Already forgot?"

She held the batteries out, that worn-down patience in her voice.

"Mom, your memory's really getting worse and worse."

I took the batteries and gave an awkward little smile.

"Getting old and muddled."

I went to the living room to change the batteries, but my heart was pounding.

That drawer. I'd just gone through it.

How had I not seen the batteries?

It seemed my memory really wasn't what it used to be.

I used to be able to find the smallest thing with my eyes closed.

Now I couldn't even manage batteries.

So the memory about the three houses, could I have gotten that wrong too?

After dinner, my husband and daughter sat in the living room watching TV.

I dried the last bowl and set it in the cabinet.

I wiped my hands and had just stepped out.

That was when I saw it on the TV, a news story about the city's redevelopment plan for old neighborhoods, complete with a map.

I spotted the familiar spot in one glance.

Exactly the same as the old family place I remembered.

The report said the area had been put on the second phase of the demolition plan.

I stood in the kitchen doorway and let my eyes move over the two of them on the couch.

My husband leaned back against the cushions, watching the news with a blank face.

My daughter sat on the other side, head down, scrolling her phone.

She didn't even lift an eyelid.

Like it was some ordinary story that had nothing to do with any of us.

I stood there a moment, then said, "I'm a little tired. I'll go wash up and turn in."

My husband made a small sound, eyes never leaving the TV.

My daughter still didn't look up, her finger sliding across the screen.

I finished washing up and went back to the bedroom.

I quietly shut the door and pulled open the wardrobe drawer.

The next second, I froze.

The recorder I'd set down without thinking earlier was gone.