My mouth says, “Sure,” while my brain wishes there were someone else here to pass the task off to.When did I become such a coward?
Out at the treehouse, I consider simply calling up to them, but again…cowardly.Climbing the steps always sends me back in time to my childhood.Murph and his friend Frank Reynolds built the treehouse when Fiona, Liam, and I were Rex’s age.The structure was simple and fairly typical of most ’90s treehouses, but it was solidly built, since Frank is a carpenter.The summer before last, when Rex started using the treehouse more, Liam and I decided to expand and modernize it.
Our motives weren’t purely altruistic; we might be in our late thirties, but we still enjoy hanging out in the treehouse from time to time.We were tired of nearly breaking our necks every time we exited the hatch to descend the ladder, so we built proper stairs and a porch of sorts, plus added real windows, a bit of insulation, and expanded the structure itself.The project was a labour of love.Neither of us had the greatest childhood, so the treehouse—and the Murphys’ place in general—is a safe space for us.
As I approach the door, it’s so quiet inside I wonder if Rex and Fiona are even still in there.I tap on the door before pushing it open to discover the pair of them lying on a sleeping bag in the middle of the floor.Rex is asleep, curled against Fiona with his arm around her and his head on her shoulder.For a second, I think Fiona is asleep too until she angles her head to look at me.The movement sends a tear sliding down her cheek.
I swallow the uncomfortable feeling rising inside me.“Is he okay?Areyouokay?”
“We’re fine.”She dashes the tear from her cheek before running a hand lovingly through Rex’s thick hair.“Mum and I tuckered him out today.He was getting sleepy as we played cards, and then he suddenly asked if we could cuddle.I’ll never turn down Rex cuddles, and he was asleep within minutes.”
Her eyes are red, and her face is shiny with tears.She shoots a glance my way, and I realize I’ve moved fully into the treehouse, and I’m looming over them.I back away and sit on the window seat.
“Mae told me about your day.”I’m not usually one to fill silences with inane chatter, but the air feels thick and heavy in the small space.“She looks like she could use a nap too.I wanted to ask her if she was overdoing it, but didn’t want to come across as patronizing.Sometimes I feel like I’ve been policing her, even though I just want to take some of the burden off her shoulders in any way I can.”
“I feel the same way,” Fiona says.“She’s always been so self-sufficient, so it’s strange seeing her like this, despite knowing it’s…well, notnormal, but you know what I mean.It makes me twitchy every time I remind her to have something to eat or drink, or suggest she get some rest.I tell myself I have to do it, have to make sure she’s okay while she’s in this grief fog.”
I hum in agreement.“Part of me wants to step in and do everything for her: take care of her, the house, the business, whatever she needs.But I know that’s not realistic, and won’t help her in the long run.”
Fiona nods, releasing a deep sigh that ruffles Rex’s hair.She returns to staring at the ceiling, and that antsy feeling creeps back in, urging me to fill the silence.Fiona and I used to be able to sit together for ages without saying a word.I often felt like we had our own special language when we spoke to each other, and it extended into the silence too.We could say so much without ever saying a word.
“You and Liam did an incredible job on this place,” she says.“The original will always have a special place in my heart for a million reasons, but this…” She pauses and laughs under her breath.“It’s the treehouse of my dreams.You could practically live out here.”
I cast a gaze around, trying to see it through her eyes.Liam and I kept the small table and chairs Frank built, along with the toy chest, but everything else is new.We considered the things we would have wanted as kids and added them accordingly.There’s a small cabinet that holds snacks and juice boxes.I built a chest to hold blankets and sleeping bags, plus battery-operated lanterns for overnight stays.The books that were once thrown in with the toys are now displayed on a bookcase.
And, despite never expressing it verbally, a few additions were made with Fiona in mind.The fairy lights inside and outside were Liam’s idea, while the window seat was mine.Fiona always told me about the window seat in her bedroom at Murph’s cottage in Ireland, and how it was one of her favourite spots in the house.My hand took over one day while I was sketching plans for the addition, and suddenly, there was a window seat.Part of me wanted to scrap the idea, but once Liam saw it, it was too late.
“Whose idea was the skylight?”Fiona asks.
“Rex’s.He begged your parents to let him have a sleepover out here once with a friend.He saw the glow-in-the-dark stars we put on the ceiling a million years ago, and said how cool it would be to see the stars for real, so we added it into the plans.”
“It’s perfect.All of it.”Her voice comes out wobbly.
My own voice sounds like I swallowed gravel as I say, “Glad you like it.”
An ache starts in my chest at how damn beautiful she looks with her auburn hair spilled around her on the floor, and the late-afternoon sunlight illuminating her face.At the way she has the full trust of the sleeping boy who owns each of our hearts.At the way she’s looking at me now with soft, searching eyes that see too much.
The treehouse suddenly feels too small.I stand so fast, it makes my head spin.I stumble a bit as I hurry toward the door.“Mae wanted me to tell you we’ll be having dinner soon.Do you want me to carry Rex in?”
It takes her a few seconds to smooth her baffled expression into one of neutrality.“No, it’s okay.I’ll wake him up now and give him a few minutes to get sorted before we go in.”
With a wordless nod, I slip out of the treehouse.The next thing I know, I’m at the back door of the Murphys’ house.This has been a common occurrence in the last couple of months: not exactly blacking out so much as doing things so automatically I’m unaware of them happening.I’ll get in my truck, and what feels like seconds later, I’ll arrive at a job site with no memory of driving there.I’ll go to do a task at home or here at the Murphys’, and I’ll come to as I’m finishing with no recollection of actually accomplishing it.
I mentioned it to Joss a few weeks before Murph died, and she said it’s a form of dissociation.“When someone you love gets a terminal diagnosis, the grieving process begins from that moment, not once they’ve died,” she’d said.I knew she spoke from experience since her own mother died of cancer years before.
“And since grief affects your brain and nervous system, it can sometimes make you feel like you’re losing your mind, or in your case, losing time,” she’d added.“It’s like you’re saving all your energy and emotion for the big, important things: helping Mae and Seamus, being there for Rex and Liam, that sort of thing.Then muscle memory and instinct take over for the smaller things so you don’t get completely overloaded with everything.”
That was one of the instances when I felt like I should have paid her for a therapy session.She’d accepted me shovelling her driveway instead.
The house is quiet when I step inside, which tells me the others haven’t arrived yet.I take off my boots and go through the house to leave them by the front door.When I turn around, Mae is standing on the bottom step of the staircase.Her glazed eyes land on me, and she blinks rapidly to clear them.
She reaches out, and I clasp her hand in both of mine.From her position on the bottom step, we’re nearly eye to eye.She searches my face in a way that’s similar to how Fiona did a few minutes ago.Where that probing gaze unsettles me with Fiona—like she sees too much,knowstoo much—with Mae, it’s oddly comforting.I accepted long ago that there’s no hiding anything from Mae Murphy.
“Fiona and I have a meeting with Seamus’s lawyer in a couple of days,” she says.“I’ve been putting it off, but he’s finally going to read the will.Seamus and I both made wills after Fiona was born, then updated them shortly after Rex was born.”She gives me a meaningful look that causes me to swallow hard past the lump in my throat.“Seamus updated his again when he got the diagnosis.He had time to think and plan, and he wanted his loved ones taken care of.”
Murph rarely explicitly talked about money, but of the thirty-seven novels he published in the course of his career, many were bestsellers, and some were even adapted into movies and TV series.Despite living a fairly modest life, it’s clear that the Murphys are well off, and they’ve always been incredibly generous with their loved ones and with various causes, especially in Honeywell.
“That sounds like him,” I say.
