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A minute later, Bug walks through carrying another box. “Ursula.”
I tilt my head. “Like fromThe Little Mermaid? Or fromFriends?”
“Does it really matter?”
“Nope,” I say flippantly, putting away some plates I’d washed earlier. “I suppose not.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I can tell she’s staring at me. She doesn’t like how I won’t engage with her attempts to annoy me.
“Do you need any help decorating your room?” I ask.
“No.”
“If you need anything, we could run to the store. Curtains?”
“Nope.”
“You don’t want curtains?”
“I do. I just don’t want to go to the store.”
I lean against the counter. “With me. You mean you don’t want to go to the storewith me?”
“This box is getting pretty heavy.” She starts for the stairs.
“We could get baby stuff. That might be fun.”
She turns. “Why would that be fun?”
“Well, we need pretty much everything. I thought we could go pick out a few outfits. Maybe even the ones they’ll wear home from the hospital. Or… we could get you some new clothes for school.”
“Not sure I’m going.” She rests the box on her hip. “I have a lot to do upstairs.”
“Maybe tomorrow?”
“I’ll still have a lot to do.”
I force out a deep sigh and hold up my hands. “Fine. You win. Go.”
I change over the laundry, then bring in a few more boxes. I have no idea what to do about dinner. I guess I’ll just make something and if Bug eats, she eats. Up in her room probably. If Asher were here, he’d make her sit at the table with us. I’m not going to force her to do that.
I’m contemplating what to make when I come across the box with Christopher’s ashes. They’re not in a traditional urn. After all, few people knew what happened, so I wasn’t about to display something in my apartment that anyone would question. It’s simple. A ceramic heart tinted blue that could be something I picked up at a flea market. There’s no engraving. No picture. And for almost ten years it’s been on my nightstand. I set it carefully on the coffee table, thinking I might put it somewhere else now.
There’s a box on the floor without a label. I pull a few things out of it. Magazines. No, not magazines, comic books. I flip through one just as Bug comes through the room. “I found your comics,” I say, holding one out and picking up a stack.
She scoffs as if I just said the stupidest thing in the history of things. “They aren’t comics.”
“Oh, right. These are your what… anime?”
“You don’t know anything,” she says, striding across the floor. “Anime is what you watch. These are manga.”
She reaches me, and forcefully pulls it out of my hand, accidentally knocking a few things off the coffee table in the process.
When I see the broken pieces of the urn along with Christopher’s ashes scattered on the floor, I fall to my hands and knees. “No!” I pick up the base of the heart to see barely any ashes still inside. “Oh my god. No.”
On my knees, I use my hands to sweep his ashes into a pile. Tears stream down my face and drop onto his ashes as I vaguely process Bug’s startled reaction.
“You’re kind of overreacting about a broken vase full of sand.”