FOUR WEEKS LATER
“I need one more piece of tape.” I measure with my eyes. “About ten inches long.”
Duncan tears off a strip of blue painter’s tape. On my knees, I wrap it along the baseboard around the corner from the hall to the living room. We’re getting ready to paint the walls, but the exact same color they used to be. I brought a chip of paint into Home Depot, and they were able to match the color.
I’m living up to my end of the deal with Richard Lee. Maybe I could hire a lawyer and try to get official ownership of the house before I turn eighteen, but I figure the total cost would be far more than the 7 percent I’m paying Lee Realty.
The new paint will cover up the squares where pictures used to hang. But I plan to leave a small part of the wall untouched: the faint pencil marks my grandma made when she measured my height.
At first, I wanted to make the house look exactly the way I remembered it from when I was seven. I wanted to buy a blue teapot to set on the corner shelf, to put a TV in the old spot, to find flowered bedspreads like the ones that used to cover the beds. But then I realized I was trying to mimic the taste of a fifty-six-year-old woman. And as great as my grandmother was, that’s not who I am. I’m not my grandmother; I’m not my mom; I’m not my dad. I’m me. Parts of them are in me, but I’m my own person.
I did say yes to Nora’s kids when they offered me some of her furniture. I’ve got her coffee table and her gold brocade wingback chair with the carved wooden feet gripping balls. Hundreds came to her funeral, including people who only recognized her from the picture in the newspaper obituary. One was the lady whose dog Nora had mesmerized in the cemetery.
She may have been ready to go, but I wasn’t ready to let her. The reality of her death still washes over me like a wave, or like the wildfire as it passed over me. Grief is a strange thing. You can feel it coming, and then it hits and it’s all you can do to keep breathing. But eventually it passes, and you pick yourself up and start moving again. Now when I go to the cemetery, I visit Nora’s grave, too. She was buried in Odd Fellows, not far from my grandma and my mom.
I’ve been spending a lot of time with Aunt Carly; her husband, Tim; and Lauren, who’s now both my cousin and my friend. Sometimes when we’re doing things together, people will ask if we’re sisters. Carly floated the idea of my living with them. But even though it’s amazing to have a real family again, I’m also used to being independent. So I’m staying here.
“Okay,” I say, “I guess it’s time to start putting down the plastic sheeting.”
Duncan uses his good hand to help me to my feet, but instead of reaching for the rolls of plastic, he pulls me into a kiss that tastes like coffee and cinnamon.
Eventually, I step back. “If we keep going like this, the painting is never going to get done.”
He gives me a crooked grin. “Do you have a problem with that?”
For an answer, I kiss him again.
I’m out of my boot, and Duncan’s shoulder is healing, although he’s going to be left with a wicked scar. Oddly, it looks something like the scar on my palm, only bigger. Both of us are freckled with little pink marks from burns, but the doctor said if we’re good about using sunscreen, they should fade. Duncan didn’t burn his feet, although he did melt the soles of his shoes running through the freshly burned landscape while trying to get to me. Even though he had brought his dad’s hunting rifle, it didn’t have any ammunition. His plan, such as it was, had been to scare Stephen with the rifle. It had worked almost too well.
Stephen’s still being treated in a burn unit, but he’s going to live. The district attorney told us that Stephen plans to plead guilty to all of it: killing my parents and Nora and trying to kill us. It sounds as though he will go to prison for the rest of his life.
Jason Collins has also been arrested, but not for murder. He’s been dealing—and using—meth. It turns out that some truckers use it so they can stay awake and drive longer distances.
Duncan’s just started back in school. Since I don’t want to work at Fred Meyer forever, I’m planning on going to winter term at the community college. He says it’s not fair that I can start college before him when I’m two months younger.
When we pull apart, Duncan’s finger catches on my button necklace. Detective Elemon found part of it next to Stephen’s car, and later Carly drove back to the same spot and picked up every single button she could find and restrung it for me. It’s not quite the same, but then nothing ever is, is it?
“I guess we’d better get back to work,” I tell Duncan.
“Okay.” He kisses me on the nose. “Whatever you say, Ariel.”