the car for my purse. I wasn’t good with niceties from him. Never knew what to do with them, what he meant by them. He was, as my father was fond of saying, hard to read. His expression just naturally looked disapproving, so I always felt on the defensive, that I had something to prove.
“Oh,” I said, opening the back door to my car, shifting boxes around. “I have something for her. For you both. For the baby.” Where the hell was it? It was in one of those gift bags with a rattle on the front, with glitter inside that shifted every time it moved. “It’s here somewhere,” I mumbled. And the tissue paper had tiny diapers with pins, which I didn’t really understand, but it seemed like a Laura thing.
“Nic,” he said, his long fingers curled on top of the open car door, “it can wait. Her shower’s next weekend. I mean, if you’re not busy. If you want to go.” He cleared his throat. Uncurled his fingers from the door. “She’d want you to go.”
“Okay,” I said, standing upright. “Sure. Of course.” I shut the door and started walking toward the house, Daniel falling into stride beside me. “How bad is it?” I asked.
I hadn’t seen the house since last summer, when we moved our dad to Grand Pines. Back then there was a chance that it was a temporary move. That’s what we’d told him. Just for now, Dad. Just till you’re better. Just for a little bit. It was clear now that he wasn’t going to get better, that it wasn’t going to be for just a little bit. His mind was a mess. His finances were messier, a disaster that defied all logic. But at least he had the house. We had the house.
“I called to have the utilities turned back on yesterday, but something’s wrong with the AC.”
I felt my long hair sticking to the back of my neck, my sundress clinging to my skin, the sweat on my bare legs, and I hadn’t even been here five minutes. My knees buckled as I stepped onto the splintered wooden porch. “Where’s the breeze?” I asked.
“It’s been like this all month,” he said. “I brought over some fans. There’s nothing structural other than the AC. Needs paint, lightbulbs, a good cleaning, and we need to decide what to do with everything inside, obviously. It would save a lot of money if we can sell it ourselves,” he added with a pointed look in my direction. This was where I came in. In addition to my dealing with Dad’s paperwork, Daniel wanted me to sell the house. He had a job, a baby on the way, a whole life here.
I had two months off. An apartment I was subletting for the extra cash. A ring on my hand and a fiancé who worked sixty-hour weeks. And now a name—Corinne Prescott—bouncing around in my skull like a ghost.
He pulled the screen door open, and the familiar creak cut straight to my gut. It always did. Welcome back, Nic.
* * *
DANIEL HELPED UNLOAD MY car, carrying my luggage to the second-floor hall, stacking my personal items on the kitchen table. He swiped his arm across the counter, and particles of dust hung in the air, suspended in a beam of sunlight cutting through the window. He coughed, his arm across his face. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t get to the inside yet. But I got the supplies.” He gestured toward a cardboard box on the counter.
“That’s why I’m here,” I said.
I figured if I planned to live here for the duration, I should start in my room, so I had a place to sleep. I passed my suitcase at the top of the stairs and carried the box of cleaning supplies, balanced on my hip, toward my old room. The floorboards squeaked in the hall, a step before my door, like always. The light from the windows cut through the curtains, and everything in the room looked half there in the muted glow. I flipped the switch, but nothing happened, so I left the box in the middle of the floor and pulled back the curtains, watching as Daniel headed back from the detached garage with a box fan under his arm.
The yellow comforter covered with pale daisies was still rumpled at the bottom of my bed, as if I had never left. The indentations in the sheets—a hip, a knee, the side of a face—as if