Last week I sat at the kitchen table with that little cassette player and hit play on the spring message from last April. Helen’s voice came out just like always, saying our names and how the dogwoods were blooming again by the driveway.

I had to stop it halfway through because my hands started shaking.

She used to stand right there by the counter and practice until it sounded natural. Spring got recorded in April, summer in June. Fall and winter too, every single year for thirty years. I never said a word about it to her.

Back then I bought a secondhand recorder at a yard sale and started copying each old greeting onto a tape before she made the new one. I told myself it was just in case the machine broke. Forty two tapes ended up in that shoebox under my workbench.

I don’t even know why I kept doing it after the first few. Maybe because her voice always sounded a little different each season. Softer some years, more tired others. I figured nobody else would ever hear them but me.

Helen got sick in the fall before she died. She still changed the greeting that October though, even when she had to sit down between takes. I copied that one too, same as always. She passed in January, quiet, in her sleep.

The weeks after the funeral were just quiet. I played a couple of the old tapes when the house felt too empty. Never told anyone I had them. It felt like something private between me and her.

One afternoon last week I pulled the shoebox out to find the April tape. I was moving things around on the bench and noticed another cassette stuck underneath. Her handwriting on the label said “Raymond, play this last.”

I stood there holding it for a long time. The label looked newer than the others. I kept wondering how long it had been sitting there and why she never mentioned it.

I almost put it back without playing it. Part of me figured she might have just wanted to save one greeting special. But the words “play this last” kept pulling at me.

I took it inside and sat at the table again. The player still had the April tape in it so I swapped them out slow. My finger hovered over the button for a minute before I pressed play.

Her voice came on after a little static. It wasn’t the usual greeting. She just started talking plain, like she was sitting across from me.

“Raymond, I found that shoebox about ten years ago when I was looking for the old paintbrushes. I never told you I knew.”

She paused there like she was thinking what to say next. I could hear her take a breath the way she always did before she continued.