I opened the next file.
Another audio recording.
This one was labeled only by date.
The date was the morning after my parents threw me out.
Caleb’s voice began immediately.
“If you’re listening to this, I couldn’t give you the drive myself.”
I stopped breathing.
He spoke directly to me.
He said my name.
Then he apologized.
He explained that after discovering the warehouse records, he had been threatened with arrest for theft if he refused to surrender the copies.
The manager had access to company security footage and intended to make it appear that Caleb had stolen merchandise.
Caleb had planned to meet with a lawyer outside Albany.
He knew I was pregnant.
That sentence made my son lift his head.
I paused the recording.
“He knew?” my son asked.
His voice was quiet.
I nodded, though I hadn’t known that myself.
Caleb continued.
“I know you’re scared.
I am too.
But I want this baby.
I want both of you.
I’m staying away until I can make sure none of this reaches you.”
My son looked at the screen as if his father might somehow appear there.
Caleb said he had made two copies of the evidence.
One would go to the lawyer.
The other would be placed in storage with instructions that it be released later if he could not retrieve it himself.
Then he said something that made Dad stand up.
“Your father knows more than he’s telling you.”
Dad crossed the room.
“Turn it off.”
I pulled the laptop back.
“Sit down.”
“You don’t understand—”
“I spent ten years not understanding because you decided I didn’t deserve the truth.
Sit down.”
He did.
Caleb’s recording continued.
The night before I told my parents about the pregnancy, Caleb had gone to Dad one last time.
He told him about us.
He told him I was pregnant.
My stomach dropped.
I stared at my father.
“You said you didn’t know.”
Dad whispered, “I forgot he told me that night.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“You don’t forget that.”
Mom’s face had gone white.
Caleb described the conversation in detail.
He had asked Dad to help him expose the warehouse manager.
He said the evidence could clear workers who had been blamed for missing inventory and could also show that several safety reports had been altered after accidents.
Dad refused.
Then Caleb told him he loved me.
