She smiled. “Guess that’s my cue.”
“Don’t worry about the dance,” I said. “You’re going to be great.”
“Fingers crossed.”
The crowd cheered as Mom went out the porch door and waved regally. I watched from the window as she descended the stairs, and then she and Fred moved out to the middle of the yard. At first Mom clutched at Fred, resting her head on his chest as he turned them through the grass and whispered in her ear. But then something seemed to ease in her, and her long legs swept across the grass, her toes pointed. Her chest rose and her head and shoulders fell back, making her body into this perfect swanlike curve. Fred responded immediately. His body straightened and lifted. It was as if the music had moved through the air and into Mom and then, through her, into him. Their bodies melded together and whirled through space, perfectly unmoored, gliding. As they came near the window, Mom looked up at me and smiled a radiant, laughing smile. The strangeness of it was overwhelming. It was her, but not her. It was then. It was before.
There was a buzz behind me. I returned to the kitchen and took the phone from my backpack. A text from Gonzalez: Front gate. One hour.
I stood in the kitchen imagining all the different ways my future could branch out from that single point. Go to the gate and leave Black River. Stay here with Mom and Fred. I saw the three of us sitting at the kitchen table with the Monopoly board between us. We’d play deep into the night and end up draped over the furniture in the living room, talking.
But then how long would it be before Mom asked about our life before? And then, how long until I told her? What good would it do, I wondered, to bring that old world into this one? Would she be any happier? Would any of us?
The music surged. I turned back to the window. The rest of the crowd had joined in the dance, making the backyard into a universe of spinning bodies. I caught one last glimpse of Mom and Fred, and then they vanished into it. It was a future that belonged to them and them alone. I had no right to take it away.
My phone buzzed again. There was one last thing I had to do before I left Black River. I lifted the backpack onto my shoulder and walked out the front door.
A few minutes later I was standing on our front lawn. It didn’t surprise me. By then the house’s ability to draw me back seemed perfectly natural. I climbed the porch steps and went inside, letting the same invisible hand that had guided me across Black River lead me up the stairs, past your room and mine and Mom and Dad’s. I didn’t stop until I came to Dad’s office.
The door was closed. Covered in months of dust that turned the white wood an ashy gray. I took hold of the cool metal knob. The works inside it creaked as the bolt drew back into its housing. A crack of light appeared between the wall and the door. I let go and it swung open. There was a sigh as the air trapped inside the room was released.
I stepped into Dad’s office.
All his things were still there, exactly where he must have left them when he walked out the morning of the sixteenth. I ran my hand along the spines of the books on his shelves. Countless sci-fi and horror paperbacks, box-set DVDs, and comics in tall collected editions. All of them were set back from the edge to make room for the horde of souvenirs he’d picked up at various cons and festivals over the years. Day of the Dead skulls; toy cars; a set of juggling balls; the small, grim army of ceramic superheroes that guarded all of it. Batman. Superman. Captain America. Dr. Strange. Cardinal.
I went to a window and forced it open. A grass-scented breeze swept in, carrying the hum of distant voices. I leaned over the sill and took three slow breaths. When my head cleared, I stood up with my back to the room. I was positive that if I turned around, I’d find Dad bent over his desk like Smaug in his den, head down, his massive frame curled over the computer as he tapped out his scripts.
Of course, when I did turn, there was nothing but a black, armless chair tucked under a desk. Dad’s laptop was closed, and next to it was an empty Superman mug, an uncapped fountain pen, and the lumpy ceramic cup I’d made him in the third grade. It was filled with a bouquet of black pencils. The words FOR DAD were badly painted on one side in green and red. I’d given it to him for Christmas, wrapped in the pages of the Sunday comics. I remembered him unpacking it the day we moved to Black River and then filling it with great ceremony. His favorite pencils. A fistful of change. And something else. Something he drew from his pocket and dropped inside. Something that landed with a soft ping.
I dumped the pencils and the change out onto the desk and sorted through them until I found what I was looking for. A key. Thin and delicate. I turned it over in my fingers, then took it to the filing cabinet by the desk. My hands trembled as I slipped it into the lock. There was a click, and the top drawer popped open. It was empty except for a single brown folder labeled