I nod. “It’s kind of a race to see who gets the best stuff first.”
“I love to race,” Lily says.
“When the doors open, I’ll want to head upstairs to the bedrooms,” I tell Zack. “I’m specifically looking for dressers and bureaus.”
“Okay. Where’s the best place for Lily and me to go?”
“I asked the man at the front door if there were any toys for sale. He said there are some in the breakfast room.” I grin at Lily. “There’s also some costume jewelry in the downstairs bathroom.”
“Oh boy!”
“Those are our two treasure-hunting spots, then,” Zack says.
“Why are the people who live here sellin’ their things?” Lily asks.
“They’re probably moving,” I reply.
“Why don’ they take their stuff with them?”
“Well, sometimes people move to smaller places.”
“Or die,” says the elderly man who’d spoken before.
His wife hits his arm. “George!” she scolds.
But the damage is done. Lily’s face crumples. “Did Mommy’s stuff sell at a ’state sale?”
The fault lines in my heart crack a little more. “No, sweetie.”Not yet, anyway.
“So everythin’ inside my house looks jus’ like it did?”
I search for a way to be gentle but truthful. “The furniture is there. Some photos and other personal things were moved, but Miss Margaret is keeping them for you for when you’re older.”
“What ’bout Mommy’s clothes an’ stuff?”
“Well, your grams saved some of her things, but most of them were given away.”
Her eyes fill with tears. “What if she needs them? At Christmas, I’m gonna ask Santa Claus to let her come back.”
I kneel down to Lily’s level. “Sweetheart, she died. Santa can’t fix that.”
“Why not? How do ya know for sure?”
I meet Zack’s gaze over her head. He squats down beside me.
“That’s just the way it is, Lily,” he says softly. “When someonedies, they’re gone and they can’t come back. No one likes it, but that’s just how it is. It’s a fact of life.”
She wipes her eyes with her fists. Her eyelashes stick together in wet clumps. “I don’ like fac’s of life.”
Zack nods somberly. “Some of them are hard to take.”
“Yeah.” She sniffs.
“But others are wonderful,” he says.
“Whaddya mean?”
“Well, it’s a fact that your auntie Quinn is going to have a baby, and that means you’ll have a new little brother or sister.”
