My mom died when I was four, so for most of what I could remember, it had been the four of us.
Dad had been the buffer.
The funeral had been a blur of neighbors.
He laughed too loudly at dinner, so nobody noticed Brittany rolling her eyes at me. Dad was the one who said, “Halle, sit here next to me,” so I didn’t have to fight for a chair in my own kitchen.
He was gone nine months before graduation. I was 17. The math of it felt cruel.
“Halle, sit here next to me.”
***
I let myself into the house just before noon.
Natalie was in the hallway, her arms full of Dad’s cable-knit sweaters, folding them into a cardboard box.
“You’re back,” she said.
“I went for a walk.”
“There’s a lot to sort through.” My stepmom didn’t look up. “I thought I’d start with these.”
I stopped in the doorway.
“You’re back.”
“Dad just wore that gray one on Monday.”
“Halle, they can’t stay in the closet forever.”
I didn’t answer. I climbed the stairs and heard Brittany’s music leaking from her room, some song about being young and free, and it was so loud that the picture frames in the hallway hummed.
