Some inherit property. Others inherit the strength to free themselves from silence.
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Sunset 6:45 p.m.
Silence wrapped the flat, the dust-covered shelves thick with old memories. Sunset caressed the windows; the light walked through them, treading with soft steps.
Leah Lim unlocked the door. Her feet crossed the threshold, but her mind stayed outside the door. She only had one night to sort through her mother’s effects before the new owner would take it over. She wasn’t sure what stoked her fear– what she’d recall, or what she wouldn’t.
Time had been locked in the apartment. Hesitantly, she began opening boxes– each contained unwanted relics from a time capsule.
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7:00 p.m. – 10.00 p.m.
She spent the next hour combing through one box after another, each holding painful memories cast aside.
A cassette tape, yellowed and caked with mould, stood apart from these items. She placed it in a nearby recorder–an outdated model—waiting for music of yesteryear.
Whispered arguments. The tape stammered, as if torn between fear and anger.
Her mother’s voice stuttered from its reel, soft and timid.
Another voice. Angsty. Loud. Almost shouting.
Then, silence.
Louder than thunder.
Leah choked on her breath.
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12:00 a.m. to 2 a.m.
Hand over her mouth, Leah continued her forage through the apartment.
Her mother’s kitchen was a catacomb of household appliances.
Blunt kitchen knives.
Chipped porcelain dishes.
Old chopsticks.
Like the rest of the home, it was old. Loose tiles appeared at surprising corners– like a person’s broken teeth.
Yellowed.
Their otherwise detailed patterns beyond recognition.
Buried in secrecy under one– more tapes
More stuttering.
Raised voices.
Her mother’s cries.
Soft.
Anguished.
The male’s cursed words.
Vulgar.
Repulsive.
Those teeth? Her past. Chewing its way from the bottom of the kitchen tiles.
A knock on the tape.
Then, a real knock.
Coincidence? She thought not.
The kitchen held its breath with her.
She peeped behind the door– no one. Her memories of the evening began to unspool, like yarn unweaving then entangling.
There was more beneath the kitchen tiles.
Hidden.
Unwanted.
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2:30 a.m. to 4 a.m.
Below the tapes–a dog-eared letter.
In her mother’s perfect cursive.
Never sent.
But addressed– to her.
A torrid love affair.
Her mother’s untold fear.
“If anything happens to me, don’t listen to your uncle.”
The letter went on– a full five pages of confessions meant only for trusted ears.
It was a letter not meant to reach the living– especially not a living child.
Messages that should have been kept-
Safely buried.
Leah sat with her back against the chair, heart throbbing and aching as her eyes skimmed the page.
Her mother’s words had yanked open a Pandora’s Box of pain and tears. She had mourned a woman she loved– but hardly knew.
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But Leah knew she had to find some way to deal.
Her finger hovered over the cassette holder’s record button.
After a few long seconds, she pushed it.
“Mom, I promise to make this place mine, no matter what happened before, or will happen.
Mine.
Yours.
Never his.”
The light of dawn treaded in softly through the windows.
It seemed to have filtered the dust.
She watched the tape rewind in a loop, her grief unwinding with it.
For her mom.
She tapped on her mobile– her lawyer’s voice.
Professional.
Yet assuring– not clinical.
Leah began, her tone clipped.
Her voice came over the line in crystalline tones.
Polished.
Confident.
“My mom, Liew Sook Mei, asked to alter the beneficiary of her will from my stepfather Albert Liew to myself, Leah Tan. I’ll bring the letter to you in the morning. “
She paused, and drew a breath.
“Also, please arrange for a restraining order that bars my stepfather from the apartment.
I will be speaking to real estate agents to sell it.”
Dust still shrouded the flat– tiles were still chipped teeth.
But it wasn’t dank.
She– Leah– had been renovated.
The strain that wore– gone.
A soft sound still resonated from beneath the tiles.
Steady.
Soft.
Clear.
Resolute.
Reconciled.
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