Dex arched an eyebrow at him. “That’s not a lion. It’s Doc Brown.”
“Oh. Well, it looks like he has a mane.”
“Honestly.” Dex shook his head in shame at Sloane. He looked around the room. “Where’s that tape recorder you found?”
Ash glanced in the boxes around them before reaching into one. “Here it is.” He passed it to Cael, who turned it over to Dex.
Propping the player on one of the sealed boxes, Dex pulled the shoelaces securing the box loose and opened it, a big dopey smile on his face. “They’re mixtapes. My dad used to make them for me.” He looked through the tapes of classic rock and old eighties tunes. Man, he’d played the hell out of these things. Every day he’d listen to them. His mom set rules, allowing him to listen for a certain amount of time. Otherwise he would have just sat there in his own little world of pop tunes playing pretend as the world went on around him.
“My birthday mixes are all here.” He went through the tapes, each one written in his dad’s barely legible handwriting. He’d drawn little stickmen with guitars or mullets on some of them. He came across a few he couldn’t remember. “Hm. That’s weird.”
“What is it?” Tony asked, walking over to him.
Dex showed him the cassette. “Bee Gees. ‘Smoke and Mirrors.’”
“Why is that weird?” Ash asked.
“I don’t remember this tape.”
“That’s not hard to believe,” Sloane said gently. “You were five, Dex.”
Dex held up one of the black cassette tapes labeled “Dex’s Birthday 1984.”
“There are forty-eight songs on this tape, and I can list them all. I can tell you every song that’s on each one of these tapes, except for these five here.” He slotted the cassette back into the shoebox before holding up the first in the lineup. The Bee Gees tape. “I have no idea what songs are on here, or the other four. Not to mention all these other tapes are sixty minutes in length while these five are one hundred eighty.”
“Let me see that for a second.” Tony took the tape from him and inspected it. “This is Gina’s handwriting.”
Dex stared at him. “Mom?”
Cael studied one of the unfamiliar tapes. The other four also had his mom’s handwriting.
“Why do you sound so surprised?”
“Dad was the one who made the mixtapes. Mom did video. She wasn’t a fan of the recorder.” He pressed the Eject button, then slipped the tape into the recorder before pressing Play. It was weird of his mom to have made a tape. Had she just forgotten to give it to him? The gentle melody and soft lyrics of the Bee Gees song hit a little too close to home, and Dex couldn’t help the tears that filled his eyes. He smiled and went to turn it off when the song faded and a voice he never thought he’d hear again had his heart in his throat.
“Hi, baby. It’s Mom.”
“Oh God.” Dex covered his mouth with his hand as the tears rolled free. His hands shook, and he closed his eyes as he felt Tony’s hand on his shoulder. Her voice was just as he remembered. Over the years it had started to fade, no matter how hard he’d clung to his memories of her, of the times she’d read to him, of her beautiful voice as she sang to him, little by little they became harder to recall. It was so good to hear her voice.
“I know how much you love your dad’s mixtapes, so I’m confident you’ll hang on to them. You’re such a good boy, Dex. I know you’ve grown up to be a good man, and handsome, just like your daddy. I’m sorry we couldn’t be there to see it. There’s so much I want to say to you. The truth might be hard to hear, but no matter what happens, what you feel, please never doubt that your father and I loved you with all our hearts. What we did—”
Dex threw a hand out and stopped the tape. “I don’t think I can do this.”
“You don’t have to,” Tony offered gently. Dex turned to him and tried his hardest to keep his emotions under control, but it was so damned hard. It hurt. It hurt so fucking much. Dex caught movement from the corner of his eye and was aware of Sloane ushering everyone upstairs. Dex was grateful. He was having trouble breathing as it was.
“She knew. When she made this, she knew something was going to happen. That means she had to have recorded this before that night at the movies. She knew she
was in danger, and she still went through with it.” Dex couldn’t help his anger. “Why? In the end what did it get them? Nothing. They didn’t save Sloane, Ash, or any of the others, and I grew up without them. They left me behind, and for what?” He paced the floor, getting angrier by the moment. How could his parents have left him like that? How could they be so careless? His dad had been an HPF detective, for fuck’s sake. Why hadn’t he talked her out of it? Why hadn’t they found someone to help, someone who could protect them?
“Son.”
The word cut through Dex’s growing ire, and he felt like such an asshole. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to belittle what you mean to me or what an amazing dad you’ve been. It’s selfish. I know it is. I just don’t understand how she could go through with it knowing what it would cost.”
Tony put a hand to Dex’s shoulder. “Your mom and dad were like family to me, Dex. Hell, next to your aunt Danelle, they were my only family. When my own flesh and blood shut the door on me for becoming a cop after what happened to my father, your parents were there to help me through it. Your dad and I felt the same. We both wanted to make a difference, and what better way to do that than from the inside? My family didn’t understand that. Your mom and dad were good people. Whatever they did, the sacrifice they made, leaving you behind, I’m certain it was a decision they didn’t take lightly. Have faith in them. Hear your mom out.”
Dex nodded. His dad was right. The least he could do was listen to what his mom had to say. Even if he didn’t want to, he needed to hear her again, even if it brought all the pain back. He needed to hear her voice again. Taking a deep breath, he took the cassette recorder and box of tapes with him to the stairs and sat down. Dex looked up at Tony.
“Will you stay with me and listen to it?”