Page 13 of Everything All at Once

She let herself in the back door with a key she wore on a long silver chain around her neck. She walked through the rooms silently, her heart aching, remembering when this house didn’t feel like such an empty, pathetic shell.

She did not let herself cry, because tears accomplished nothing except turning your eyes red and blurring your vision.

Would they ever be under this roof again, the four of them: Mom, Dad, Alvin, and herself?

Would this deserted and hollow house ever feel like a home once more?

She always remembered to lock up when she left, even though there was nothing valuable left to lose.

—fromAlvin Hatter and the Return of the Overcoat Man

4

The ride home was quiet. Amy fell asleep with her cheek against the passenger side window, and Abe turned on the radio but left it so low I almost couldn’t hear it. I watched the sea disappear behind us and thought of Sam and how many people were at the party, how many people my aunt seemed to know that I had never even met. How even the people closest to us could be so much a mystery.

When we got home, my parents put Amy and Jackie in the guest bedroom, and Em and I crawled into my bed like we had done so many times when we were kids. Em turned on the flashlight on her phone and made shadow puppets on my ceiling: a dog, a rabbit, a goose. Then she made a face and made its mouth move to say, “I saw you dancing with a strange boy.”

“Sam, remember? You talked to him.”

“I did not remember, admittedly,” the mouth said.“Now I remember. Who is he?”

“One of my aunt’s students, I guess.”

“He seemed nice. Did you get his number?”

“Why would I get his number?”

“So you can call him and go on barfingly cute little hetero dates, obviously,” she said, abandoning the shadow face, letting her hands fall to her sides.

“He lives far away,” I said.

“He lives an hour away.”

“That’s far. That’s basically a long-distance relationship.”

“You once said Jackie and I have a long-distance relationship because our lockers are in different hallways.”

“It just seems like a lot of work.”

“Can I ask you something?” Em turned the flashlight off and put her phone on the pillow. She rolled over toward me. I could see her face in the glow of the moonlight coming through the window. “Why were you hiding in the bathroom?”

“I wasn’t hiding in the bathroom,” I said quickly.

“You were totally hiding in the bathroom. It’s, like, your signature move. Whenever I can’t find you, I look under the stalls for your shoes.”

“I was tired. I didn’t feel like dancing anymore.”

“How come?”

“I don’t know. Leave me alone.”

“You seem a little distant, and maybe that’s dumb to say because I know how sad you’re feeling right now, but I’malso worried that you’re going to pull away, or not talk to me about how sad you are, and you should talk to me about how sad you are, because you can’t keep that kind of thing bottled up, you know?”

“She left me letters,” I said suddenly. It just came out.

“Helen?”

“Yeah. All these letters. Kind of like... instructions.”