Chapter 5 - Twenty-Three Voices
I had collected those interviews the way other people collected postcards. Mrs. Alden talked about learning to drive at fifty-nine. Mr. Perez described writing a letter every week to the brother he hadn't spoken to since a funeral. A retired custodian named Darlene Banks told me she had never once been asked about her dreams until she'd retired.
People lent us their voices because we promised to handle them carefully. We obtained permission to broadcast particular interviews on our little station. We did not promise that their grief would become advertisements.
Mabel brought the station manager, Oliver, to my house. Oliver was thirty-seven and earnest, the kind of man who bought his own printer paper when budgets ran short. He looked close to tears as he laid a spreadsheet on my kitchen table.
"The file access logs show Evan downloaded twenty-three interviews last winter," he said. "His repair account should've been closed after the computer project. That was our mistake."
"My mistake too," I said. "I asked him to help."
"Trusting your son isn't authorization for him to sell an archive."
Cal sat beside me, silent. I knew he was remembering a different station mistake.
The spreadsheet linked each interview to possible ad categories: memory loss, caregiver stress, loneliness, medication assistance. Darlene's story about missing the bus after retirement was marked COGNITIVE CONFUSION. Mr. Perez's sorrow about his brother was tagged FAMILY BREAKDOWN.
"They even changed the subject of the stories," I said.
Oliver nodded. "We have backups. But we need to determine what Kindred received and how the rights were represented."
I called Darlene first. She still lived in the yellow bungalow behind the library, and she still answered the telephone by announcing that she was busy.
"Darlene, it's Ruth Bellamy. Have you got a minute?"
"For you, two. What's wrong?"
I told her exactly what we knew and what we didn't. I said someone may have licensed her interview without the station's approval and may have altered its meaning. I asked if she wanted copies or help making a complaint. I didn't tell her she had to become a public witness.
Darlene stayed quiet so long I thought the call had dropped.
"When I talked to you," she finally said, "I said retiring made me lonely. I didn't say I lost my mind."
"I know."
"My grandchildren are going to see this?"
"We're working to stop it. You should hear it from me first."
She cleared her throat. "Then I'm coming over. I want to hear the whole thing, not your version or theirs."
By lunchtime, four other former guests were at my kitchen table with Oliver and Mabel. Nobody looked comfortable. A man named George had buried his wife the previous year. He worried that a sponsor would use his interview to suggest he couldn't live independently. A retired school cook demanded to know who had been paid for her story.
I couldn't answer every question. I apologized for the station's part without inventing excuses. Oliver outlined the steps being taken to secure the files. He asked permission before playing any clip.
Darlene listened to the unedited portion of her interview, then to the thirty-second segment Kindred had prepared. She pushed back her chair.
"You know what's missing?" she asked.
I shook my head.
"The part where I said I started taking art classes. They kept the lonely part and cut out the happy ending."
Nobody spoke.
That was the sharpest description of the harm I'd heard. The people who bought our memories wanted us frightened and unfinished. They didn't want us growing.
In the afternoon, Dana from Kindred emailed to confirm the teaser had been taken down from its official pages while it investigated the paperwork. Copies remained online elsewhere. Kindred would not distribute the other interviews pending review. She sent an inventory of material received, which matched most of Oliver's spreadsheet but included three interviews with names we didn't recognize.
"Those could be from another collection," Mabel said.
"Then we don't guess," I answered. "We ask."
Evan came upstairs after the guests left. He looked as if he hadn't slept.
"You called all those people?"
"Some of them. They're adults. They get to decide what happens next."
"Kindred suspended our payment. We can't cover the rent."
"I'm sorry you're in trouble."
He looked hopeful.
"I'm not sorry I stopped you."
His expression closed. "Cal's got you doing this. He always wanted the business to fail."
"Cal didn't ask for the video. Cal didn't cut my hair. Cal didn't download the interviews."
"You don't understand how much pressure we were under."
"Then explain it. Without making me responsible for it."
He left without answering.
Wren came in later and asked whether her parents were going to divorce. I said I didn't know. She asked whether I'd stop loving her father. I said love and trust weren't the same thing, and I could still love a man I needed distance from.
"Will you stop loving me if I mess up?" she asked.
"Never. But if you hurt somebody, I'll expect you to help make it right."
She nodded. Then she reached into her backpack and took out a folded piece of paper.
"Mom left this beside the printer. I thought you should know."
It was an internal storyboard, with timestamps and notes for the first episode. Beside the image of my sleeping face were the words CUT HAIR WHILE RESTING — UNCONSCIOUS TRANSITION. Below it: EVAN REACTION: CALM BUT WORRIED. RUTH RESPONSE: CONFUSED, TEARFUL.
My throat tightened. Even my fear had been planned.
Wren tapped another line near the bottom.
GRANDMA GETS AGGRESSIVE? USE ORIGINAL BEDROOM AUDIO.
There had been no camera in my bedroom that I knew of. I looked at Wren.
May you like
"Honey, did you ever see a microphone up there?"
"Dad put a little black box behind your clock," she said. "He told me it was for the Wi-Fi."
