~
He spent the rest of the morning gathering anything of use outside while Alice packed the Tahoe with blankets and towels as well as gallon jugs full of water she filled from the kitchen tap. Quinn brought the gas cans from the back of the Tahoe to Graham’s garage as well as a screwdriver and hammer. He laid beneath the small sports car and pounded a hole through the bottom of the gas tank, letting it drain slowly into a large bread pan he found in the house before transferring it to a can. When the cans were full, he hauled them out to the main drive, leaving them there for when they left. The wind rose and whistled through the bare branches of the trees, its touch chilling him as he walked down the drive. He was leaving his home for the very first time. The thought brought goose bumps to his arms. He rubbed them away, but there was no way to calm the excited knot that had formed in his stomach. Even with the layer of heavy grief covering him and the insecurity the outside world offered, the sense of freedom was tangible, like something he could almost grasp and pull out of the cool air.
Inside his father’s office, he found a full box of shells for the XDM and an extra magazine. He tucked them both into a small cloth bag that he slung over his shoulder and paused at the doorway before coming back to the desk. Inside the top drawer was his father’s leather day planner. At the very back was a list of phone numbers. Most were marked only with a first name or initials, all of which were unfamiliar to him. At the bottom of the page were two addresses. One was a strange jumble of Spanish with a city he had never heard of while the other was in English, a town listed that Foster had told him about several times.
“Newton, Pennsylvania,” he said to the empty room. With a tug, he pulled the piece of paper free and was about to stand when his gaze landed on a framed picture at the corner of the desk. It was of he and his father sitting side by side on the cliff facing the ocean. His father’s arm was slung around his small shoulders. The sea was white-capped and angry looking, but their posture was relaxed, at ease with nature and each other. He couldn’t have been more than ten in the picture. The memory of he and Teresa sitting in almost the exact same place only days ago washed over him, and he reached out to grasp the frame. He stopped, his fingers sliding against the smooth glass, tracing the memory for a long moment before he stood.
He rounded the desk and was about to leave the room but turned back and grasped the picture, placing it gently in the bag beside the shells. He hovered on the threshold for a long time, his eyes running over the surfaces and objects, each one spurring a memory that played out and bled into the next. When his vision began to cloud, he reached out and closed the door without a sound.
“It’s hard, isn’t it?”
Alice’s voice startled him, and he turned to find her watching him from down the hall.
“What?”
“Leaving. I got the same way on the last trip out of our shitty, little apartment. Can you believe that?”
He nodded and looked around the house. “I’m coming back though.”
“That’s what I told myself too.”
He made a last circuit through his home, stopping, remembering, if for only a moment. He avoided the solarium completely. The days spent with Teresa there were cherished memories, and he didn’t want to taint them with how the room looked now.
At last he followed Alice and Ty out to the garage, giving the hall one last look before closing the door.
“Want me to drive?” Alice asked, leading Ty to the rear driver’s side.