Once we had entered the cave, I found myself in her arms. She was hugging me tightly as if her life depended on me. I was taken aback, why was she doing it? But what took me by surprise was the light movement of her shoulders: she was crying.

“Oh, hey? What’s wrong?” I cooed.

“Hurt” she said the same words she uttered some hours before.

“Your wounds hurt?”

“No” she said freeing from the embrace.

“What is it then?” it was like she understood all my words.

“This” she pressed her hand on her chest, on the side where the heart is.

“What? Why?”

“Come” she took my hand and led me toward the tape recorder I saw earlier.

“What is it?”

“Listen” she pushed a button. Some voices came out, disturbed at times, as if the tape had got worn down by listening to it for who know how many times. I gasped as I listened.

“Say hello, Elizabeth! Say hello to your grand mommy” it was the voice of a woman, and I could hear a little girl giggling. “We have to record these messages so she doesn’t miss us” the voice kept going. Then the tape continued with who I guessed by then was Bette’s mother reading a story to her. Suddenly on the background was a lot of noise, as if something got thrown in the hair and then shattered. I heard the child screaming and crying, and a voice of a man: “Maxine, we have to move? They found us! We have to take Bette away” “Melvin what’s going on?” then a distressing silence followed.

Saying that I was shocked is an understatement. I couldn’t believe my ears; I knew from the bottom of my heart that Bette didn’t belong there, but knowing that she got a history behind, hearing that sweet voices, the love they carried with them, and then the shattering of what was safe for her, left me hurting like hell. I couldn’t imagine what that did to her. I had a glimpse of what she was feeling by looking at how broken she was. She kept crying and crying.

“Bette, I am so sorry”

“It hurts!” she sobbed into my shoulder.

“I know, honey” I caressed her hair. “How old were you?”