I go inside, sit on the sagging couch, and put my head in my hands. Tears prick my eyes. It’s clear that Duncan and I can never be friends. Not now. I just dumped water on whatever spark was between us.
Is he right? Do I owe everyone the truth? Carly looked so sad at the funeral. And when I talked to Lauren in the bathroom, it felt like we could be friends.
But how can I figure out what really happened that day if people know who I am? They certainly won’t tell me anything then. They won’t let their guard down. Instead, they’ll ask questions about what’s happened in the past ten years. I don’t feel like reciting my failures: the merry-go-round of foster-care placements, my broken relationship with Tamsin, my decision to leave school so I could escape the system.
Even Duncan looked at me differently when he thought I was from Seattle than he did when he realized I was the only surviving victim, the coda to a terrible story.
This house is the last place I was truly happy. I may not remember my mom, but I do remember Grandma. Curling up together on the couch and watching TV. How I would ask what was for dinner and she would give me one teasing answer after another, no matter how I protested. “Tiger tails with daffodil sauce.” “Fried tarantulas.” “Barbecued unicorn horns.” I would get so frustrated, stamping my foot and demanding to know the truth, even though I always ended up being a little disappointed when the real answer was Spanish rice or beef Stroganoff. She read to me every night before bed and praised every drawing I made. In her eyes, I was brilliant and beautiful.
I want to go back to that time, or at least make it look the same. The couch sits at a ninety-degree angle to the window. It’s not the same couch, but I still get up and drag it until it sits with its back to the window—in the “right” place. Now I need to get a coffee table and a small TV to put in the built-in bookshelves, where ours used to sit.
The chairs in the dining room are different from the ones I remember, but close enough. I think the table is even the same table, much the worse for wear.
I go back down the hall and turn right into one of the small bedrooms. The bed is along one wall, but I use my knees to slowly push it across the carpet until it’s underneath the window. Where it’s supposed to be. My grandma across the hall, and my mom’s room here, with my room on the other side. After my mom died, this room became a shrine. When I was growing up, her hairbrush still sat on a little table next to the bed, and her clothes hung in the closet.
But is everything gone? Moving like a sleepwalker, I go over to the closet. It doesn’t have a door anymore. Dropping to my knees, I fist my fingers in the nap of the gray carpet. I yank and pull at the far corner until, with a squeal of staples, the carpet peels free. I don’t know what I’m doing; at least my mind doesn’t, but my body does.
Underneath are pristine fir floorboards, unscarred, since no one ever walked in the corner of the closet. I stick my fingernail under the edge of one. It lifts up, revealing a space about ten inches wide and six inches deep.
Then I reach into the dark.