“This is where I grew up.” He turns off the truck and stares out the window as if he’s waiting for something. Courage?
“Who lives here now?”
“No one.”
“Who owns it?”
“I do.” He frowns, eyes still trained straight ahead.
“Are you trying to sell it?”
Theo shakes his head and then gets out. I follow him as he plods through the tall grass that’s overtaken the brick walk to the front porch.
“Siblings?”
He shakes his head.
“How old were you when you moved here?”
“I lived here my whole life until I moved into an apartment my first year of college.” Resting his boot on the first porch step, he shifts his weight forward like he’s testing it. The white paint has weathered leaving rotting planks with cracks and holes. It creeks when he steps up.
“When was the last time you were here?”
Gripping the column at the top of the porch, Theo releases a sigh. “The day I found my father’s body.” He lowers his head while his knuckles turn white with his tightening grip on the column. “His face was unrecognizable,” he whispers.
The bottom step creaks again as I step onto it.
Theo turns and holds out his hand. “Here. Careful. The place was in need of renovation before they died. The years since haven’t done it any favors.”
We test each of our steps until we reach the door. Theo fishes his keys from his pocket and unlocks the front door. It, too, whines as he eases it open.
“Oh, wow.” The inside of the house doesn’t match the outside at all. The dark wood floors have a layer of dust blanketing them, but it’s easy to see that beneath the dust, they are flawless. The elaborate trim work of the stairway bannister, crown molding, and built-in bookshelves in the study to our left all scream Theodore Reed.
“My father and I were in the process of remodeling the whole house when…”
I nod. “Is that how you learned to do this? Your father?”
“Yeah.” He takes my hand and leads me up the solid stairs, not one single creak. Theo wraps his hand around the doorknob on the right but his gaze drifts to the closed door at the end of the ginger-painted hallway adorned with black frames—the Reed family story in pictures.
I imagine that story ended in tragedy in that room at the end of the hall.
“Is this your room?”
His head jerks back to the door before us, back to the present. “Yes.” He opens it.
With one step, my mind is blown by what I see. This isn’t a lie. This is real. This isTheodore Reed.
“My mom decorated it after I moved out.” He laughs through the palpable pain in his voice. “I’m not this vain.”
Who is the boy in all of these pictures? Shaggy, blond hair and a smile that could light an entire universe.
Theo as a baby in the arms of his beautiful mum. She was truly stunning.
Theo holding his first hammer as a toddler, standing next to his father, both wearing overalls and tool belts.
Theo riding horses.
Theo playing American football in school.
