My phone dinged, letting me know Gibbes had left another voice mail. My thumb hesitated a moment before I dropped my hand back to the table. “You can ride your new bike, too, when you visit the cemetery. I’ll have to come, but I can just hover in the background and you can pretend you don’t know me.”
I was rewarded with a small smile. Gibbes had brought over the blue bicycle a couple of days after the funeral. It had been his when he was Owen’s age, and it was just sitting in his garage. He’d fixed it up, oiled the chain, and pronounced it good as new when he’d delivered it to Owen. And because I was taking my new role as guardian very seriously, I’d gone to Walmart and bought my own bike—in yellow—and helmets for both of us.
Slowly he slid his chair back from the table. “I think I’ll just go up to my room and play with my LEGOs for a little while.”
“All right. Just let me know if you need anything or if you get hungry.”
He nodded, then slowly walked out of the kitchen, his sock-covered feet quiet on the wood floors.
I stood in the kitchen for a long time, wondering what I should do, then headed up the stairs to pull all the paperwork Loralee had left, including guardianship of Owen and handwritten notes about what sort of education she envisioned for him, as well as the funds and accounts that were already set aside for that purpose.
I paused at the top of the steps, then detoured toward Loralee’s room. The nurse had stripped the bed and remade it with a quilt she’d found in the closet. But the rest of the room appeared as if Loralee had never left, with her clothes hanging in the closet, the scent of her perfume still lingering in the air, her makeup and hairbrushes resting on the dresser.
One day I’d have to pack up her clothes and shoes and personal effects and decide what to save for Owen, and what to part with. But I couldn’t do that yet. It would almost seem like watching her die twice. I stood in the doorway, unwilling to go in, unwilling to admit that it was empty. My gaze fell on the bedside table, which was cleared of all pill bottles and rolls of antacid tablets. All it contained now was a small pink clock, a vase of wilted flowers, and Loralee’s pink journal. I’d somehow managed to forget about it, or to push it so far from my brain that I’d pretended to forget about it. The journal belonged to Owen, but Loralee had wanted me to read it, too.
I took a step forward to get it, but stopped. Reading her words, hearing her voice, would probably be more than I could take. I headed back toward my room, leaving the journal where it was. It would be there when we were ready for it.
I sat on top of my bed with Loralee’s papers as well as my notebook of ideas—something Loralee had suggested and labeled for me—and tried to think of practical things, like schools for Owen as well as plumbing and appliances and heating and air systems. And refinishing basements. I’d decided to turn the basement into a rec room for Owen and his friends, a fun boy retreat with a place for gaming (Gibbes’s idea) as well as a Ping-Pong table and something called Foosball (again, Gibbes’s idea; he apparently got all his ideas from his college fraternity days).
But I was too easily distracted by thoughts, the same ones that had kept me up most nights since Loralee’s death. They were a mixture of grief, and uncertainty about my ability to be a good enough mother to Owen, and my indecision as to what to do about the suitcase and the letter in the basement.
I yawned, realizing I was too tired to make any decisions about anything in my current state. I wasn’t usually a nap taker, but I figured it might be my only option, since I wasn’t able to keep my eyes open.
The thunder had been replaced by the steady beat of rain against the roof, as good as any lullaby. I picked up my phone to set an alarm for thirty minutes—assuming I could sleep that long—and saw the voice-mail sign on the screen. I touched the button, then listened to Gibbes’s message.
“Hey, it’s me again.” Pause. “If you want me to get lost, just tell me. But I’d really like to talk. I miss her, too, and maybe if we . . . I don’t know.” Another pause. “Anyway, I wanted to let you know that I’m going on a fishing trip with some friends of mine, and the cabin we usually stay in is pretty much off the grid, with no cell service. There’s a gas station about three miles away, though, where I can get a few bars. So if you need me, call and leave a message and I promise I’ll check in a couple of times a day. Tell Rocky I said hi.”
I listened to the message three times just to hear his voice, then hit the “end” button. I’d call him back later, if only to tell him that Rocky was back to being Owen. I dropped my phone on the bed beside me and lay back on my pillow, the sound of the rain the last thing I remembered hearing before I dropped off to sleep.
*