I take the box out of her hands and set it back on my pillow. “No. My daddy buys me presents all the time.”
“Are you going to open it?” she asks.
I shake my head again. “No. I don’t want to.”
She folds her hands in her lap and sighs, then looks around the room. “You have a lot of toys. Why don’t we ever come here and play? We always go to my house and it’s boring there.”
I sit on the floor and grab my shoes to put them on. I don’t tell her I hate my room. I don’t tell her I hate my house. I don’t tell her we always go to her house because I feel safer over there. I take my shoelaces between my fingers and scoot closer to her on the bed. “Can you tie these?”
She grabs my foot and puts it on her knee. “Hope, you’re about to turn five. You need to learn how to tie your own shoes. Me and Holder knew how to tie our shoes when we were five.” She scoots down on the floor and sits in front of me. She says it like she’s so much older than me. She just turned six. She’s only one year older than me because I’m almost five.
“Watch me,” she says. “You see this string? Hold it out like this.” She puts the strings in my hands and shows me how to wrap it and pull it until it ties like it’s supposed to. When she helps me tie both of them two times, she unties them and tells me to do it again by myself. I try to remember how she showed me to tie them. She stands up and walks to my dresser while I do my very best to loop the shoestring.
“Was this your mom?” she says, holding up a picture. I look at the picture in her hands, then look down at my shoes again.
“Yeah.”
“Do you miss her?” she asks.
I nod and keep trying to tie my shoe and not think about how much I miss her. I miss her so much.
“Hope, you did it!” Lesslie squeals. She sits back down on the floor in front of me and hugs me. “You did it all by yourself. You know how to tie your shoes now.”
I look down at my shoes and smile.
“Lesslie taught me how to tie my shoes,” I say quietly, still staring at the house.
Holder looks at me and smiles. “You remember her teaching you that?”
“Yeah.”
“She was so proud of that,” he says, turning his gaze back across the street.
I place my hand on the door handle and open it, then step out. The air is growing colder now, so I reach back into the front seat and grab my hoodie, then slip it on over my head.
“What are you doing?” Holder says.
I know he won’t understand and I really don’t want him to try and talk me out of it, so I shut the door and cross the street without answering him. He’s right behind me, calling my name when I step onto the grass. “I need to see my room, Holder.” I continue walking, somehow knowing exactly which side of the house to walk to without having any actual concrete memories of the layout of the house.
“Sky, you can’t. No one’s here. It’s too risky.”
I speed up until I’m running. I’m doing this whether he gives me his approval or not. When I reach the window that I’m somehow certain leads to what used to be my bedroom, I turn and look at him. “I need to do this. There are things of my mother’s that I want in there, Holder. I know you don’t want me to do this, but I need to.”
He places his hands on my shoulders and his eyes are concerned. “You can’t just break in, Sky. He’s a cop. What are you gonna do, bust out the damn window?”
“This house is technically still my home. It’s not really breaking in,” I reply. He does raise a good point, though. How am I supposed to get inside? I purse my lips together and think, then snap my fingers. “The birdhouse! There’s a birdhouse on the back porch with a key in it.”
I turn and run to the backyard, shocked when I see there actually is a birdhouse. I reach my fingers inside and sure enough, there’s a key. The mind is a crazy thing.
“Sky, don’t.” He’s practically begging me not to go through with this.
“I’m going in alone,” I say. “You know where my bedroom is. Wait outside the window and let me know if you see anyone pull up.”
He sighs heavily, then grabs my arm as soon as I insert the key into the back door. “Please don’t make it obvious you were here. And hurry,” he says. He brings me in for a hug, then waits for me to walk inside. I turn the key and check to see if it unlocks the door.
The doorknob turns.
I walk inside and shut the door behind me. The house is dark and sort of eerie. I turn left and walk through the kitchen, somehow knowing exactly where the door to my bedroom is. I’m holding my breath and trying not to think about the seriousness or implications of what I’m doing. The thought of getting caught is terrifying, because I’m still not sure if I even want to be found. I do what Holder says and walk carefully, not wanting to leave any evidence behind that I was here. When I reach my door, I take a deep breath and place my hand on the doorknob, then slowly turn it. When the door opens and the room becomes visible, I flip on the light to get a better look at it.
Other than a few boxes piled into the corner, everything looks familiar. It still looks like a small child’s room, untouched for thirteen years. It makes me think of seeing Lesslie’s room and how no one has touched it since she died. It must be hard to move past the physical reminders of people you love.
I run my fingers across the dresser and leave a line in the dust. Seeing the trace of my finger quickly reminds me that I’m not wanting to leave evidence of my being here, so I lift my hand and bring it down to my side, then wipe away the trail with my shirt.