“Flora said there was an accident,” she said.
Neither of us spoke.
She reached into the box and pulled out a paper pamphlet. “I found the booklet that Papa used to make it.” She looked up at both of us, from Brit to me and then back again. “We can put it back together, can’t we?”
Brit nodded.
Mrs. Feliciano took us to the table in the garage where Flora’s dad had built the greenhouse, showed us the box of tools he used—pliers and scissors and toothpicks and glue. She told us we could use the stuff anytime—she would leave the back door to the garage open.
I would’ve helped—I wanted to—but Brit took over reconstruction of the greenhouse entirely. By the end of the summer, she had put it back together as best she could. It didn’t look exactly the same, but it was whole again, at least.
I wasn’t there when she gave it to Flora—just came over one day to find it back on the bookshelf in its original home.
Brit didn’t stop there. She asked for a miniature kit for Christmas that year, and by spring, Flora had a tiny bookstore as well, and then an art studio, a dressmaker’s shop. We never really talked about the miniatures—beyond complimenting them when Flora showed us—and I got the feeling that Brit didn’t want us to, that it was something between her and Flora. Penance, at first, but then something that was unique to them, special between them.
I was still staring at the latest kit on Brit’s desk when she got back from her run. She entered the room quietly, saw me awake on the bed.
“Gonna shower,” she said, grabbing some clothes out of the dresser. “Make sure you call in at Safeway.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. I had forgotten I was supposed to work today.
“Brit,” I said as she headed back to the door. She paused. “Thanks for—”
She shook her head. “Don’t mention it.”
forty-three
I babysat for Harper that evening.
Part of me wanted to cancel—I felt like the living dead—but I stayed in all day, and managed to get it together by six o’ clock.
August wasn’t there. I couldn’t help but feel relief—I had no idea what to say to him.
Heather and Cadence were at another dance thing. They had left in a flurry, Heather searching for Cadence’s ballet shoes while pointing out stuff in the kitchen for Harper. “I got some of those squeezie things she likes, she can have one of those if she’s still hungry after dinner,” she said, hurriedly pulling on some sandals. “And there’s a bunch of stuff in there for you if you want. August made some mac and cheese earlier but didn’t eat it, so go to town.”
Then they were gone, and it was just me and Harper, who didn’t want anything more than food and attention.
It was Kyle who came home first. Harper had fallen asleep in my arms, and I was too tired to get up and put her in her crib. Anyway, it was comforting—the warm weight of her, adjusting every so often, making little grousing sounds.
Kyle took her from me when he arrived, dropping a kiss to the top of her head. But instead of heading to her room, he looked at me.
“Want to see something we’ve been working on for August?”
“You and Harper?” I said with a small smile.
“Yeah, she’s crack with a band saw,” he replied, and I flashed on that first night in the kitchen with August—I saw her change the oil on the car yesterday.
I stood and followed Kyle into the kitchen, through the door to the basement. Harper slept on, face smooshed against Kyle’s shoulder.
Past the laundry area was a door that Kyle pushed through.
There were a few windows set high up into the wall, and carpeting down where there had been bare concrete floor before. Also, actual walls and an actual ceiling. The light was still a bare bulb with a pull cord set into one of the walls—“Gotta get something better for lighting,” Kyle said—but it was a real room.
“Just finished painting yesterday. I’ve got a mattress and box spring coming from one of the girls at work, said they’ve barely used it. And I was thinking—we were wanting to get a new TV this year anyway—you know how Heather gets with the Black Friday sales—so maybe we could put the old one down here, for gaming or whatever, get a couple of chairs or something, I think there’s enough room for it.…” He turned to me. “Heather picked the carpet and the paint color and all that. We wanted it to be kind of a surprise … his birthday is next month, and we’ve got to get him out of the kitchen, you know, that was really only a temporary solution, and a pretty terrible one at that, even though he insisted …” He trailed off. “What do you think?”
I thought about what August had said—They’re good people. So I’m gonna make it easy on them.
And on the heels of it, Terrance that day at Teen Zone 2:
I know it wasn’t right. Technically. And I’m sorry. But also I’m not.
“He’s going to leave,” I said. “He told me … I think he’s going to leave soon. I think he thinks it would be better for you guys. If he didn’t live here anymore.”
Kyle blinked. “What?”
forty-four
Kyle put Harper in bed, and I was gathering up my stuff when August came through the kitchen door.
Drunkenness, and its aftermath, had not allowed me to forget You should get a tattoo across your shoulders. And then I can lick it off. It was the first unmerciful thing that popped into my head on seeing him.
“Hey,” August said, and it wasn’t an official declaration of joint remembrance, but it wasn’t not that, either.
And then Kyle’s footsteps approached.
August looked past me. “What’s up?”
“Is it true? Are you planning to leave?” Kyle’s voice was measured, his face neutral.
August’s gaze shot back to me, hurt in his eyes. “You told him?”
“Were you going to say anything?” Kyle said, before I could respond. “Give us a warning? Or were you just gonna skip out?”
Silence. August squeezed his eyes shut briefly and then looked toward the ceiling. “I … I’m really grateful for everything you’ve done for me—”
“This is a weird way to show it.”
I spoke: “I think maybe August—”
“Don’t,” August said. “Just …” He shook his head.
“I think we probably need to talk this one out just the two of us, Soph,” Kyle said evenly, and then pulled his wallet from his back pocket to pay me. “Thanks for watching Harper tonight.”
August turned away when I moved past him to get to the back door. I paused in the doorway, looked back at the two of them—August’s head hung, Kyle with his arms folded—and then I left.
* * *
I couldn’t take back the text messages that Terrance had sent that day in Teen Zone 2, the summer before freshman year.
I’ll come
I’m sorry
I’m only mad cause I miss you so much
I couldn’t tell Ciara that it wasn’t me who had finally answered. And I couldn’t tell her that it wasn’t true, because it was.
By the time I had gotten home that afternoon, thrown my bike down outside, and stomped upstairs, she had sent me another message saying, Please come visit.
And so I replied,
Ok.
Terrance is the reason I saw my sister that summer. We went to the zoo and an art museum. She and Ravi took me out to dinner. We made root beer floats with her roommates, watched our favorite movies. I had the best time. I didn’t know it was the last time.
If I knew—if I had known, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it—I would’ve told her I loved her more. I would’ve told her how I hoped that I could be like her one day, that I could be even half as funny, half as smart, half as kind. I hoped that I would find someone who looked at me the way Ravi looked at her, but even more, I hoped that I would look at someone the way she looked at him. She loved with her whole heart. I wanted to be like that.
I would tell her all those things, if I could, but I wouldn’t change anything else about that week, because it was perfect—its only failing in that it had to end.
* * *
I opened a text to August that night and began to type out an explanation. Erased it, tried to say it another way, to phrase it better. Erased that too.
In the end, I wrote, I hope you can forgive me, and pressed send.
forty-five
I worked the next day, and it was only on my break that I saw a missed call from Heather.
I called her back, and she picked up on the first ring.
“Hey, I saw that you—” I began.
“Is August with you?”
“No. I’m at work.”
“Was he with you last night? Did he stay at your place?”
Something in my stomach seized. “No. What happened?”
She let out a breath. “He and Kyle, last night, I guess they had an argument. I thought everything was okay when we went to bed, but when we woke up, he was gone. His stuff is gone.”
* * *
“Where would he go?” Dash said, both of us standing outside Safeway. His shift was almost finished, but mine was only halfway through. I didn’t care. I left anyway.
“Heather said he didn’t take a bike or anything.”