“I’m fine,” I assure her.

Security is here. I don’t need a sleepover.

But she looks at me level. “Just let me care about you, okay?”

Something in her voice shuts me up, like she’s done being nice and done asking.

Kind of like Jake. I give her a small smile.

She hugs me, and I close my eyes, squeezing my arms around her.

She says goodbye and leaves, and I prop up my elbows on the counter, staring at the will.

But the silver case to my left out of the corner of my eye is all I can really see.

I look over at the urn that looks like a large jewelry box, sterling silver with ornate etchings. Mirai has been keeping it until she brought it to me tonight. Just one urn for them both.

My parents wanted to be buried at the tree with the swing in the yard, clearly never questioning that I would stay here or ever sell this house.

I bury my face in my hands, letting out a groan. This ache, like something is burrowing into my stomach, and I know my eyes are puffy, even if I haven’t looked in a mirror since yesterday morning when I envisioned myself pregnant with Kaleb’s baby.

God, yesterday morning. How can so much have changed in one day?

Sliding off the stool, I stick my hands in the pocket of my hoodie and drift around the house, taking in how much has changed. Everything is still in its place, nothing really different. Except for the way I’m seeing it.

The fireplace was for show, only turned on for parties or holiday pictures, and it runs on gas. No need for firewood, no crackles of the logs or smell of burning bark.

Every few years, rooms were redecorated, furniture that had barely been used replaced with a new style. At no time did I ever veg out on the couch to watch TV or make popcorn for a movie night.

The boys would tear this place up in no time. I shake my head, picturing a deer head over the mantel.

I drift upstairs and stop at the top of the landing, ready to veer left for my room, but I pause, staring right. My parents’ bedroom door sits closed, and I head over, gripping the handle.

The cool brass seeps down to my bones, and I can still hear her voice behind the door. The glass she’s drinking from clanking against the marble tops of the tables inside and the pills in my father’s bottle jiggling as he tries to gear up for his stressful days.

I should’ve talked.

Screamed, yelled, cried…

I should’ve asked.

I release the handle, leaving the door closed, and walk for my room and open the door. As soon as I step inside, however, something fills up in my lungs, and I don’t know what it is, but a small laugh escapes as the tears stream at the same time.

The ominous Virginia Woolf posters and photographs of myself in thoughtful poses staring off into the wind.

Jesus.

My parents always kept recent photographs of me for reference during interviews, but the decorator thought putting some in my room wasn’t weird at all.

And gray. Gray everywhere.

Gray fur coverlet. Gray walls. Gray carpet. It’s like Pleasantville. I’m almost scared to look in the mirror.

I stand there, no desire to move farther. This was never my room.

Spinning around, I head down the stairs and back into the kitchen, not sure what the hell I’m doing, but I know it’s something. I grab a tea light and a lighter out of the drawer and tuck my parents’ urn under my arm as I head through the house and into the garage. Digging through some drawers I finally find a garden shovel and grab it.

Just do it. I couldn’t stand up at their funeral and show them, myself, or anyone else that my soul wasn’t fucking crippled, but I can get this done for them.

Hurrying outside, I circle the house and head to the tree, the tire swing that Mirai cut down and left laying on the ground now gone.

I drop to my knees, light the candle and set it in the grass, giving me just enough light.

I start digging. Stabbing the grass, I work out a patch and keep slicing through the soil, making the hole wider and deeper. My belly churns, the box sitting there like a fucking bomb about to go off. I can’t believe they’re ashes.

Fucking ashes. They were so much before. Large. So important.

And now…they fit in a shoe box.

A fucking shoe box.

A sob escapes, but I swallow the rest down and toss the shovel away.

God.

Slowly, I open up the box and—very gently—remove the clear plastic bag.

It’s the weight of a truck, even though it’s barely the weight of an infant.

I carefully spread the ashes in the hole, stuff the empty bag back into the box, and push the dirt over top, covering the hole again.

I choke on the tears and brush off my hands, collapsing to the ground and sitting with my back up to the tree.

It’s that easy, isn’t it? It’s so easy to bury them—to throw things away—but it doesn’t mean that they aren’t still felt. That what they did disappears, too, because it doesn’t.

I wish they’d had gotten to know me.

I wish they didn’t have to die for me to be given the opportunity to know myself.

Sometimes the clouds aren’t enough, I guess. We need the whole damn storm.

I stay out there for a long time, looking up at the thick bough above from where my father tied the rope for the swing. The wear in the bark shows years of all the nights they played. It’s still surreal to me that I never once came out here to sit on the swing.

But then, there was no one to push me.

I blow out the candle and take everything back inside, putting it away and closing the house up. I turn off the lights, making sure the back door is locked but not bolting the front, because Mirai is coming back.

Climbing the stairs, I yawn, excruciatingly tired. It’s after seven here, so it’s only after eight in Chapel Peak. What’s he doing right now? He wouldn’t be going to bed yet. Not unless I was, and then he goes where I go.

My heart aches. I don’t think I expected him to call, but I wasn’t sure I expected that he’d just accept us being apart, either. But here we are, a day later, and nothing.

I stop at the top of the stairs, about to head to bed, but I step right instead and walk to my parents’ door, opening it up this time.

The smell of vanilla and bergamot assault me, and I almost hold my breath on reflex. I like the scents, just not together. It will always remind me of her.

Entering the room, I look around and notice everything is as pristine as if they were still alive. The bed is made, no sign that their bodies laid there for hours all those months ago, and the glass top of my mother’s make-up table glimmers in the moonlight streaming through the sheer white curtains. The crystals dangling from her lamp gleam, and I flip on a light, doing a three-sixty around the large bedroom.

As much as I try to search for a connection to them, though, it doesn’t come. There are no memories here. No nights of crawling into their bed. No playing with my mother’s make-up or helping my dad with his tie.

I walk into the closet and turn on the light, gazing at the long line of beautiful dresses I desperately wanted to try on over the years and never could.

“Hey,” I hear Mirai say behind me.

She’s back.

I turn my head slowly, looking at the closet of clothes and the displays of jewelry and watches. I think of all the art in the house and the cars in the garage that have nothing to do with me anymore. A home full of things that were never a part of me, and I no longer desire them to be.