“It doesn’t mean I don’t love you,” he hedged, and sensed an almost imperceptible flicker to his right, in the burning coals. Relief flickered inside his ribs, too. Until recently, he’d never really argued with House, and Gavin wondered if this was what it meant to fight with your brother or sister, to argue with your parents. “Can’t I love you both?”
He didn’t have time to examine this realization—the possibility that he could love Delilah—because Piano lurched with a huge clang, as if an anvil had been dropped from above, and the boom of every string snapped at once so loud he felt it reverberate through his chest.
“Don’t be like tha—” he started to say, when his sketchbook flipped open on the coffee table. Gavin took a deep breath before walking over.
The book lay open to a drawing of Gavin smiling on a summer day, with House just behind him. He’d copied it from the photo that hung in the hallway and was still proud that he’d managed to duplicate it almost exactly, right down to the ice-cream cone and drips of melting vanilla running down the back of his hand. Silently, the sketchbook flipped to another page, one of Apple Tree in the backyard, his favorite swing suspended from the sturdy branches. Then another and another, all drawings of House and the many parts of it he loved.
Me, it was saying. Pick me.
Fireplace roared to life in the corner, warming the room as the flames grew and receded. Gavin could imagine the black smoke that was billowing from Chimney, the puffs like heaving, impatient breaths.
“I know it’s hard, but I want Delilah in my life too. I don’t want you to run her off. I’d be sad without her.”
A chair pushed up behind him, buckling him at the knees. He dropped into the seat too quickly, and it teetered on two legs.
“Sorry,” he started to say, before he was flung backward, Chair taking off across the room and stopping in Living Room. An old aluminum TV stand stood between Couch and Television, its worn brass finish rubbed down over time to a dull, coppery glow. But that wasn’t what had his attention, because on top of the stand was a plate of food.
His stomach growled almost on instinct.
A tiny voice inside his head told him to slow down and think. Why was there a steaming plate of his favorite dinner—roast chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and hot rolls? He hadn’t known he was hungry until just now, but his mouth watered as the scent of chicken floated up to him.
Pick us! See? Look at what we do for you.
Gavin didn’t want to eat on principle, but the scent of roasted chicken was everywhere. His attention was pulled away anyway to the television screen when it suddenly flickered to life.
The neighborhood on TV looked surprisingly familiar: tall oak trees lined the empty street as a pair of bluebirds few past. Off in the distance, the top of an old church he recognized was visible, a statue perched on the tower looking down on the houses below. It was Gavin’s street, and as the camera panned over, it was House, standing tall and crooked, and made of glass and stone and warm, worn wood, gleaming in the afternoon sun.
The screen zoomed in through the gate and up the walk, to a boy sitting cross-legged in the grass, an entire army of toy trucks surrounding him.
It was a drawing from Gavin’s sketchbook brought to life, of Gavin playing while House looked on. Tree branches pulled in close, protecting him from the heat of the day.
House had gathered a hose, vines and branches, and the long, thin leaves of a tulip to push his trucks through the grass and up the little dirt paths he had made for them. Not once had it occurred to him that his world was different or less somehow because it was House playing with him instead of one of the boys that lived in a house a few blocks down. Gavin had just felt adored.
It had always been only them, so it wasn’t surprising House was having a hard time dealing with the changes happening now.
As if it sensed his softening mood, the lights dimmed to a warm, cozy glow. The edges of a blanket brushed the curve of his cheek and wrapped itself around him in the closest thing to a hug it could offer.