"She goes crazy if you even touch their stuff, so I had to mess it up to prove to her that it's okay if it isn't how they left it."
"Fuck." I sigh. "If she sees this..." I go over and pull the covers back up, trying to quickly make the bed.
"Nash!" Callie yells.
"Shit." I drop Ben's pillows on the bed and say to the girl, "Get out of here. Hurry up."
We both scurry out of the room and I shut the door. Callie's standing in the hallway. She's no longer crying but she's a mess; hair going every which way, mascara running down her face, her eyes bloodshot.
"She's leaving," I say to Callie.
"I'm not leaving," the girl says.
"If you don't get out I'll call the cops," Callie says to her. "I mean it, Trina. I swear I'll call them."
Trina. I knew it started with a T.
She walks up to Callie. "I'm trying to help you. I'm trying to be your friend."
"Tearing apart my house isn't helping me." She wipes her eyes. "And as for being friends, we haven't been friends since the accident. After it happened you stopped talking to me. You didn't even go to their funeral."
"I was in Europe. I'd just started my internship. I couldn't just leave."
"You could've at least called me. But you didn't." Callie takes a breath. "It doesn't matter. I knew our friendship was over that day. You never stick around for the hard stuff."
"That's not fair, Callie. Just because I didn't know what to say to you doesn't make me a bad friend. Nobody knows what to do when someone dies. It's awkward and uncomfortable."
"And it tells you who your real friends are," I say, speaking from experience. I go over and stand beside Callie. "Real friends stick around when bad shit happens, even if it's awkward and uncomfortable."
"Who the hell is this guy?" Trina asks Callie.
Callie keeps her eyes on Trina. "Please go. And don't call me."
She frowns. "Callie, you don't mean that."
"I'm sorry, but we're not friends anymore. We haven't been for a long time."
"Fine." She walks back to the living room with Callie and me following behind. She goes over to the couch and picks up her purse and a giant floppy hat, then goes out the door.
As her car drives away, I bring Callie into my arms. "She's gone. It's going to be okay."
"It's not." She shoves me back. "It's not okay! She took all their things!"
"They're not gone. Everything's in the wastebasket. You can take it all out."
"But she moved them! If I put them back, it won't be the same!"
How do I handle this? Callie needs to pack those things away, not set them out again. She'll never move on if she does. It's fine if she wants to keep them, but putting them on display is just a constant reminder of what she's lost.
"Callie, let's go sit down."
"No. I have to see what she did." She bolts down the hall to Ben's room. I find her on the floor, sobbing, and clinging to a stuffed dinosaur.
I sit down in front of her.
"She ruined it," Callie says, her voice trembling. "It was just like he left it, and she ruined it."
"I'm sorry." I run my hand up and down her arm.
"Why would she do that? Why would she take them away from me?"
"She shouldn't have done it, but Callie...they were already gone."
"No." She shakes her head. "They were here. They were still here until she took them away."
I'm finally figuring this out. It's finally making sense.
"When their things went untouched," I say, "it was like they were still here."
She nods. "And now they're gone. Even if I put it all back, it won't be the same. It won't be how they left it. They won't be the last people who touched it." She sniffles. "They're gone. For good."
Her hands cover her face and she sobs. I reach over and pull her toward me and hold her in my arms. I hate seeing her cry, but she needs to. In her mind, her family died all over again today. So she needs to cry. It's part of her grieving, part of her healing.
When her tears dry up, she says, "Will you help me put everything back?"
Shit. What do I say? I want to tell her no but that will just upset her. I try to remember what my dad did when I lost Becky. He talked to me a lot, but he also asked me a lot of leading questions, trying to help me find my own way out of my grief.
"Callie, what if we didn't put everything back?"
"What do you mean?"
"What if we just put some things back but not all of them?"
"I want them all back like they were."
"But you just said it'll never be the same, so should we really put them back? Aren't they just objects now?"
She pushes away from me. "They're not just objects! They're things that meant something to my family."
"Some things have meaning, but not everything," I say cautiously. "Does a basket of yarn really have meaning?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because it belonged to my mom."
"So did the pots and pans in the kitchen, but you still use them. You don't display them on the counter and not touch them."
"What are you trying to say?"
"That maybe not everything has to be put back where it was. Maybe a few things could be put into boxes for you to look at later."