The question is a riddle to me. I have nothing. I live with my mother. I am a single father, and I work two jobs.
I glance up to find her looking at me from across the room. Her eyes are empty, but I smile and wink.
Maybe efficient and pushy are the wrong words to describe her. Maybe determined and strong are better adjectives. She’s holding her own among these well-wishers, but it’s wearing on her. As one set of decisions needing to be made disappears—regarding what she was going to do about her grandmother—a new set of decisions appears. What will she do with what remains? Will she sell that old house? Will she rent it? Will she ever come back to visit this place once she leaves?
My shoulders fall at the possibility she’ll have no reason to return, and then I watch Sue Carpenter approach her, encouraging her to stop trying to pick up dishes and serve people. Yep, efficient. Emily nods as Sue takes a stack of teacups from her hands, and Emily steps into the Carpenter’s kitchen.
I hate being in this house. I hate thinking of Gabe Carpenter, who is lingering somewhere around here. Out of respect for Joe, Gabe’s dad, I’ve never aired the dirty laundry about his son and my wife. Tom says I’m a fool for not skywriting it and exposing him for the cheat he is, but I don’t want to destroy another family just because Gabe destroyed mine.
Then again, it was really Debbie who did the damage.
When Emily doesn’t return after a few minutes, I go in search of her just as I’ve been doing the past couple of hours.
“I sent her home for bit,” Sue tells me as she stands at her kitchen sink. She’s really taken care of everything today. The service. The luncheon. She was a good neighbor to Elizabeth, and she’s equally kind to Emily. The Carpenters are good people, despite their son.
I kiss Sue’s cheek and watch her flush pink before I thank her for all she’s done today. Then I excuse myself. Once I’m at Elizabeth’s, I let myself in through the screened porch and then lock the door behind me.
Quietly, I climb the stairs and find Emily curled on her side on a double bed. From her position, she can see straight out the back window toward the Mueller’s home. Was it only two weeks ago that I was fixing that roof and staring down at her every few seconds in her backyard? So much has happened so quickly, but then again, I know firsthand how everything can change in the blink of an eye.
Emily shifts on the bed, looking up at me over her shoulder. She’s wearing a black dress with thin straps and a sweater. The sweater’s old, definitely something a grandmother would wear, and I imagine it’s Elizabeth’s. In the heat of July, she hardly needs the covering, but she wears it out of respect and perhaps longing for her nana.
“What are you doing in here?” she whispers as her voice cracks before rolling back to her position and continuing to stare out the window.
“I wanted to see how you are,” I say, still standing next to her bed. My hands slip into the pockets of my black pants. I’m wearing a white dress shirt that’s too tight, as I’ve gained a little weight since moving home. The slim tie around my neck feels out of place. I haven’t worn one in a while. That was another lifetime ago.
“I don’t need anything today,” she says. Because she’s efficient, she leaves off as her voice trembles, and she swipes at her cheek.
Could she need me? Sure, we might have started out fighting for no known reason, and that blame is on me. She struck something in me I didn’t want struck. She’s lit something I didn’t want lit, but now that the flicker of a flame is there, I can no longer deny it. Because it’s not just about me. It’s also about Katie.
I don’t reply to her, and while she remains staring out the window, her back to me, she weakly voices, “Please leave me alone.”
Fuck. That.
Kicking off my shoes, I then loosen and remove my tie. I unbutton a few buttons from this damn tight shirt and untuck it. Then I kneel on the edge of the bed. She shifts, peering up at me over her shoulder once again.
“What are you doing?” she asks, her voice raspy and wet with