The Beginning of After - By Jennifer Castle Page 0,83

and cheese and crackers on the first night. I thought it would be fun for us to be here, you know, together.”

Joe nervously bit his lower lip. We’d already made out and then I’d kiss-tackled him. Why did this have to be so hard? This was like baking cookies from a premade mix, not from scratch. All the hard work was already done.

“I mean, I’d pick you up, and take you home after,” he finally said.

I smiled at him, saying nothing.

“Like a date,” he added with a smile back at me, then we both took the deep breaths we needed.

When I got home, there was a stack of unassembled cardboard moving boxes sitting outside the front door.

“Nana?” I called, walking into the house.

“Can you grab some of those boxes?” she said, coming down the stairs to meet me. “I had them delivered, but I need your help carrying them in and putting them together.”

After I brought them inside, I watched Nana as she examined the boxes, waiting for her to provide more information. But it seemed like she wanted me to ask.

“What are they for?” I finally said.

“Coats,” she replied matter-of-factly. “You know I do that every year, up in Johnstown. We collect old coats during the holidays and distribute them at the Rescue Mission.”

“Oh, right.”

“So I thought we’d do the same here.” She paused, and swallowed. “With your father’s. And your mother’s. She had so many.” I didn’t say anything, so she also added, “I found a foster children’s group that will gladly take your brother’s.”

Nana went straight to the front closet, opened it, and started rummaging around. “You can keep anything of your mother’s that you want, of course. You should. Some of it was expensive, and it would look nice on you.” She pulled out a long brown cashmere coat that Mom often wore into the city and handed it to me. “Like this one.”

I took it silently, the fabric collapsing into my hands. I raised it to my face and inhaled.

Musty, but laced with flowers and some kind of sweet spice, like cinnamon.

“I don’t think I can do this, Nana,” I said.

She was holding one of Toby’s down parkas, petting it. “I don’t know if I can either, sweetie. That’s why we should do it together and do it fast, before I change my mind.”

“Just the coats?”

“Just the coats. For now.”

I nodded, biting my lip as the tears came burning through, and laid the cashmere coat on the dining room table.

I said, “This will be the Keep pile.”

Chapter Twenty-nine

On Thanksgiving morning, Nana and I were prepping to make stuffing by hand and sweet-potato casserole, when she discovered, with horror, that she was missing something.

“How could I forget the marshmallows?” she asked, planting her arms on the kitchen counter as if she might faint from shock. “I’ve been making that casserole for forty years!”

“Nana, relax. The store’s still open, and I’ll go get some,” I told her.

“And why doesn’t your mother own a Dutch oven? Did she never make anything for more than four people at a time?”

“What do you think?” I said, trying to make her laugh, but she didn’t, so I added, “I’m sure one of the neighbors has one you can borrow.”

I knew Nana was mostly stressed because she’d hoped to do her trip home during the past week, to get it done before the holidays. We’d spent a half day rounding up every coat we could find and donated eight boxes’ worth to people who’d need them. She felt like she was on a roll, and ready to do the same thing at her own house. But at the last minute, she said she wasn’t feeling well and didn’t want to travel. “Besides,” she’d told me, “nobody’s going to rent a house or buy a condo before January anyway.” I agreed with her but knew it was because she didn’t want to leave me alone.

We were going to the Dills’ for Thanksgiving dinner. It was never discussed, just simply assumed.

Last year, I would have been thrilled to be invited to the Dill Thanksgiving. My family didn’t do the holiday well. I guess with no aunts or uncles or cousins to share it with, the pressure was off. Usually we drove up to Nana’s and ate at the Holiday Inn, where Toby and I could hang out in the arcade until the turkey arrived. Or on rare years when I could convince my mother to have dinner at home, she always went upstairs to