Page 38

“Val?” He sounded vulnerable.

“Yeah?”

“I know—I know you probably want to go back home, but—”

“I can stay.” I didn’t know if he meant back to Richmond, or just back to my parents’ house, but it didn’t really matter.

“Do you really think you can catch who did this to Dad?”

I didn’t. I didn’t have a fucking clue where to even start, although I was going to give the Shawano PD until at least next week before I started making phone calls. I wasn’t sure what the hell else I was going to be able to do, though, because I wasn’t a cop and I didn’t have the authority to try to push a case that, as far as the Shawano PD were concerned, wasn’t a case.

Maybe I’d try to mail the little baggie of dirt to Mays. For all the fucking good that would do me. With my luck, the goddamn post office would probably lose it.

“I’m going to try,” is what I told Elliot.

9

It wasanother two days before Elliot finally told me to go back to my folks’ house. I could tell he didn’t really want me to, but the guilt he felt about keeping me finally overrode his need to have me there… And while I waffled, my guilt also won out over being a good best friend, because being a good best friend meant that I was being a shitty as fuck boyfriend.

I felt terrible about the fact that I’d left Taavi with my parents, especially because my mother had now taken to guilting me about it by sending me texts every few hours about what they were or weren’t doing.

Watching the game with Dad!OrTaavi’s helping me bake!OrDon’t worry, we won’t do the stollen without you!

Not that I needed any help in the guilt department. I’d stayed long enough to put yet more pre-made food—lasagna, this time—into the oven so that Elliot would actually eat. I’d had another cheese sandwich, because Elliot ate meat and so people had brought him food with meat in it. My one night of cold pasta salad had been a happy fluke. I was getting sick of cheese sandwiches, but me bitching about bread and cheese was complete horseshit given the circumstances. I still had both my parents.

So I ate my bread and cheese and shut the fuck up about it.

I don’t even know if Elliot noticed. He ate what I put in front of him, but I don’t think it even registered what it was half the time, or whether or not I ate anything at all, much lesswhatI ate. I wasn’t about to judge him for that.

Sometimes he’d seem to partially emerge from the fog of grief, making a wry joke whose humor faded a few seconds later, or remarking on something on the TV, or sharing a memory about his dad while we went through the seemingly endless jars and dried herbs in the basement, matching them up against Gregory’s catalogue and making sure everything—especially the toxic shit—was clearly labeled. We’d gone through Gregory’s upstairs closet and drawers, the herb stores in the basement, and the closets in the guest bedroom and front hall.

We still had the garage, the other half of the basement, the kitchen—which was in use, so it was hard to go through—and the office. Neither one of us wanted to do the office, even though we knew we’d have to get there eventually.

When I finally did get back to my parents’ house, I dug some leftover vegetable bake (identified by a post-it on the lid) out of the fridge and threw it in the microwave, leaning on the counter while it heated, just trying to breathe and wrap myself around the last week. When it was done, I carried my bowl of food upstairs, where I found Taavi sitting in bed, reading a paperback I didn’t even know he owned. Maybe it was my dad’s.

I had no idea what to say to him. “Hi,” I half-whispered.

It was almost midnight. I’d waited until Elliot fell asleep, then left him a note saying I’d be back in the morning, even though he’d told me to go. I hadn’t seen Taavi or my folks at all since the reception the day of the funeral. Just text messages letting them know I wasn’t going to eat with them. That I was staying over.

Telling Taavi that I loved him and I was sorry.

Taavi looked up at me. “Are you staying?” He sounded tired. And something else I couldn’t put my finger on. It made guilt churn in my stomach, and it also made me more than a little nervous.

I nodded, shifting awkwardly, the hot pad under the bowl in my hand starting to get warm.

“In here?”

I couldn’t read the tone in his voice, and it made me even more anxious. Afraid I’d really gone and fucked up this time. “If… that’s okay?”

He nodded again, his eyes watching me.

I crossed to the bed and sat down on the edge.

Taavi was sitting on the other side, his back against the headboard and the blanket pulled up over his legs. I set my bowl down next to me, steam rising from the vegetables in their cheesy cream sauce with what were probably Ritz crackers crumbled on top.

“Taavi, I’m sorry,” I rasped. I was a toad. The warts on a toad. The slimy kind that smelled funny.

“Eat your dinner, Val.” He went back to his reading.