“Doyou think I should have gone with the pink?”
I looked up from my spot on the floor as Olivia stared at the patches of pale green we’d painted on the walls as a test. “I like the green. It’s mature and peaceful. But if you want to change your mind you have about three minutes to do it.”
I was opening the can of paint my mom had bought at the hardware store and getting ready to pour it into the paint trays we’d laid out over the tarp on Olivia’s floors.
“I guess you’re right,” Olivia said with a sigh. “I just don’t want to make a mistake.”
“It’s just paint. And mistakes are part of being human, Liv. They’re not the end of the world.”
She nodded. “I guess.”
I realized with surprise that she was growing up. Since June’s murder, I’d been so preoccupied with Ethan Todd I felt like I’d hardly looked up. In my mind Olivia was still thirteen, still in middle school, with braces and gangly limbs that seemed too long for her body, like a just-born colt still trying to figure out what to do with its legs.
But she was growing into a young woman, her black hair shiny and long, her face less round than it had been when June had been alive. It made me sad that June wasn’t here to see her grow up, that we couldn’t talk about how crazy it was that little Liv would be driving soon.
Iamhere, M. I’m here all the time.
It’s not the same.
I know. But that doesn’t mean it can’t still be good.
“You want me to cut in here while you start rolling over there?” I asked Olivia. “Or do you think we should both cut in and then roll all at once?”
“Are you speaking English right now?” she asked. “Because I don’t know what any of that means.”
I laughed. I’d painted the apartment with Bailey when we moved in, and we’d both watched YouTube videos to make sure we did a good job.
“We need to use the little brush and the edger to get the corners of the room and along the ceiling and baseboards.” Wow, I sounded like a grown-up, another thing to add to my list of Crazy Things That Had Happened Since June Died. “Then we fill in the big parts of the wall with the roller.”
She nodded as she stared at the wall, her expression serious. “That makes sense. Maybe you should cut in since you know what that means and everything.”
“You got it.”
My dad appeared in Olivia’s doorway holding a tray with two glasses of clear sparkling liquid garnished with rosemary and cranberries and a plate of homemade blondies, because snacks were never ordinary with my dad around.
“Thought you might want something to keep you going,” he said, taking in the empty room.
“Dad, paint will get in the drinks and stuff,” Olivia said.
“I’ll leave it out here.” He set the tray on the floor outside the room. “You can take a break whenever you’re ready.”
“Thanks, Dad.” Olivia was at the age where everything our parents did seemed annoying and intrusive, but I knew better: we were lucky to have them.
I thought about Bram and Cassie, who’d been denied such a basic element of human safety. They’d done a good job of taking care of each other, but I wished they hadn’t had to, and I was suddenly eager to introduce them — both of them — to my family. They could borrow my dad until Olivia stopped being annoyed by him.
Or forever if they wanted.
“Good luck,” he said, retreating into the hall.
“Be nice to him,” I said when he was gone. “He’s just trying to take care of us.”
She sighed. “I know.”
We went to work, Olivia rolling the color onto one side of the room while I cut into the other side with the brush and edger. Music played from her portable speaker and we worked in companionable silence, speaking only occasionally when we had a question or when we wanted to show each other something.
The color was super pretty on the walls: a pale sage that made me think of the forest around Blackwell Falls. It would be peaceful for Olivia, and we’d already talked about thrifting items for the mature, peaceful vibe she was working toward.
I thought about Ethan Todd while I worked. He hadn’t taken the bait on our bots yet, but the posts had blown up, exploding into threads with hundreds and even thousands of comments, the war between feminists and misogynists on full display as Ethan’s name trended for the third day in a row.
