Daniel’s brother was around constantly after the accident.

He changed a tire in the rain because I had forgotten cars still needed ordinary things after your life ended.

He fixed a leaking faucet.

He brought groceries when I forgot to buy them.

But whenever I mentioned the lake, something closed in his face.

“Andrea, you have to stop.”

“I just want to understand…”

“You can’t.”

“What if they missed something?”

“They searched for weeks.”

“What if Daniel turned around because something happened?”

Dean would rub both hands over his face.

Then say some version of the same thing.

“You have three daughters who still need you.”

I hated him for saying that.

Not because he was wrong.

Because it sounded too much like:

Forget the other four.

I never did.

 

Six years passed.

The girls grew up around absence.

One daughter started college.

Another learned to drive.

Birthdays came.

Christmases came.

School pictures changed.

The bedrooms at the end of the hall barely did.

Sophie became the person who finally said what everyone else had apparently been thinking.

“Mom, we need to go through their things.”

I looked at her.

She was standing in the doorway of her brothers’ room holding an empty cardboard box.

“No.”

“Mom…”

“I said no, Sophie.”

“We’re not throwing anything away, Mom.”

“Then why are you holding a box?”

“To donate what somebody could use.”

I stared past her.

That room wasn’t a shrine.

At least I told myself it wasn’t.

But too many things remained exactly where they’d been.

A baseball cap still hung from one bedpost.

A stack of comic books sat beside another.

One sneaker had been under a desk for six years because I couldn’t bring myself to move it.

Some stupid part of me had never stopped expecting footsteps in the hall.

Sophie lowered her voice.

“They’re not coming back for these.”

That hurt.

She knew it immediately.

Her eyes filled.

“I’m sorry.”

I looked away.

Then reached for another box.

“Fine.”

She nodded.

We started packing.

Old shirts.

Books.

School supplies.

Things children outgrow when they’re allowed to keep growing.

After a while, I stepped away to cook.

Dinner was still hours off, but I needed an excuse to leave.

I couldn’t stay in that room any longer.