armchairs and the empty space where a piano used to be.
It’s the holes that I see first: the pictures that Mom and Dad took off the walls to bring with us, the pots and pans hanging over the kitchen island, little porcelain trinkets here and there. When we left, we only took what we could fit in the car. A lot of stuff was tossed out, but the rest belonged to the house, which now belonged to the bank, which would then pass it on to whoever could afford it. The house didn’t sell, obviously, and no one cared enough to come in and cover the furniture. The heirlooms and electronics have been picked over, stolen, and whoever took them left the back door wide open.
Both Ruby and Sam watch me move through the kitchen, then the living room, like they’re waiting for me to blow my last fuse. I walk over to the back door to slide it shut, only to find the glass pane is missing entirely from it.
I’m sorry, I think, squeezing my eyes shut. I’m sorry….For the first time in my life, I am grateful that my parents aren’t alive to see what’s left of our lives.
Home isn’t four walls, it’s the people you’re with. I repeat Ruby’s words over and over until I can feel the truth of them working under my skin.
“Where should we put him?” Liam asks. He and Chubs have followed us in, Lucas between them. “I maybe wouldn’t recommend upstairs. We found a family of raccoons that were not particularly happy to see us—whoa—!”
Lucas dips dangerously to the ground as the boys both seem to jump slightly back, fighting the instinct to drop their hands and let him fall. Ruby and Sam both rush over.
His eyes are open, seeing everything and nothing.
There is a second of silence; we’re all stunned stupid, I think. But then his expression contorts—contracts into an ugly snarl, and whatever strength is left in his too-thin limbs flares. He thrashes at them weakly, trying to twist out of their grip—or trying to attack them?
The air blows out of my lungs. My chest closes up. The world shrinks to the wall that he’s facing, the one lone picture that we somehow missed in our last sweep of the house. The little family portrait hangs crookedly, all of our dusty smiles slanting down to the floor.
“Help—a little help, please!” Charlie says to Ruby, his voice high and thin with the effort of holding onto Lucas. “Turn him off!”
The picture bursts into flame.
The fire spills across the wall and, with nothing to stop it, catches the thin, brittle fabric of the ragged curtains. Liam swears loudly as he and Chubs both drop Lucas to the floor and begin to shake out their hands, which look blistered red. He tries to catch Ruby’s arm to pull her back, but she kneels down and puts a calming hand on Lucas’s chest, even as he tries to knock a fist into the side of her head.
“Oh, hell no!” The front door slams behind Vida. She sprints through the smoke and stoops to pick up a pillow from the couch, tossing one to a frantic Sam and taking the other for herself. She and Sam start beating the flames with them, trying to keep the fire from spreading to the carpet.
And me, I…
They did poison this place for him.
Our home.
They made him hate us.
I can’t stand here—I can’t stare at the evidence of my world crumbling to ash. I am the biggest fool in the world. I’m an idiot. He’s never going to snap out of this. We never should have brought him back here. All we’ve done is upset him, cause him even more pain than he’s already in.
I just need…
I need air that’s cooler.
I need…
I push past Sam and Vida, ignoring their voices as they call after me. I run, and I don’t know where I’m going, only that it’s not back into the house, not yet, maybe not ever again.
The backyard is worse than the front. It’s a maze of hedges and trees, and for a moment, I feel too overwhelmed by the unfamiliar sight to move.
And then I hear Lucas’s voice; I hear it in the wind that moves through the chimes he and I made out of cans and old silverware for Mom’s birthday when we didn’t have money for anything else. The smell of sap and damp earth and green life curls on it, drawing me forward like