He sets back to work, and I head up the stairwell and through the hallway. I hear Cassie shuffling around on the floor above, but I go straight to my room, which is now almost completely empty. I do find one box sitting on the floor, labeled with a sticker that says “Winnie.” I sit down cross-legged and start looking through it—finding old playbills and reviews that were clipped out. There are old pictures with my friends from grade school and high school. Tattered report cards where my right-brained self excelled in English and art while the left side of my brain played possum for science and math.
I strike gold when I find my Mary-Kate and Ashley VHS treasure trove. Regardless of what haters will say, these movies were disastrous masterpieces. I must have watched them nine hundred times, and I regret nothing. I’m just stacking them back neatly into the box when Cassie appears in the doorway, holding an unsealed box of her own.
“Knock, knock,” she says with an airy smile. Her hair is pulled back in a braid, as always, and she’s wearing jeans and an old T-shirt. She may have just been in the attic, but her cheeks are sun-kissed, telling me she’s been out in the garden this morning as well. I’m sure she’s going to miss our backyard most of all.
“Hey, Cassie,” I answer easily, looking over my shoulder. “Looks like you guys are just about finished up.”
“We’re getting there. I still can’t believe we’re actually doing it.”
“It’s not too late to change your mind,” I tease.
“Oh, don’t make me feel worse than I already do.” She slides down to sit across from me with the agility of someone who does an hour-long yoga routine every morning, without fail. “It was hard enough to decide to go in the first place. If I stop and think about it now, I’ll only start crying again.”
“Did you cry when you first decided?” I ask, somewhat surprised.
“Of course I did,” she answers. “I knew it was the logical next step for us, but that didn’t make the decision any easier. We’re not excited about moving away from you, Winnie.”
“No, I know that.” I try to brush off her sentiment, fully aware that she’s just as emotional a person as I am and worrying that a sobfest will inevitably ensue.
“Do you, though?” she asks meaningfully. “I know that from the beginning—since we first met, really—you basically sort of liked me, but there was always something keeping us from being as close as I hoped.”
“Don’t think that,” I tell her. “You were great. Youaregreat. You always treated me well, and you make my dad very happy.”
A dreamy kind of smile crosses her face. “Yes, your dad. I have to say, when I showed up for that college reunion, the last thing I expected was to run into him. I really only went because I thought a change of scenery would be nice for the weekend. But then, of course, I ended up uprooting my entire life.”
Self-centered as it is to realize, I never really thought about how Cassie’s moving here affected her. I only pictured it from my line of vision. How her being here mademefeel. How her relationship with my dad affectedmylife. I never stopped to consider that she was a woman who left so much behind just to be with us.
“Do you regret it?” I ask her.
“Oh, no. The truth of it is, I thought my life was over for the most part. I was married, I had Becky, I got divorced, I got accustomed to being a single mom, and then Becky went off to college and it was just me again. I was happy enough, but I figured that was it for my story.”
“And then?” I prompt.
“And then I fell in love with the weird guy from my Intro to Biology class. Did you know that we were lab partners back in college? Anytime I tried to help or touch anything, he nearly had a panic attack. He was so organized and precise, and I had the best time just watching him. He’d get so wrapped up in a project that it almost seemed like he was making music with a microscope.”
She grins at me, a little lost in her daydream, and I find myself grinning back.
“He couldn’t get away from me fast enough at the end of the term, of course. And I didn’t blame him. I was very much outside his comfort zone.”
“Did he recognize you right away at the reunion?” I ask.
“Not at all. I assumed he did, though. I walked right up to him and started rambling away about how funny it was to see him again and told him all about what I did after graduation. I think I was probably ten minutes into my life’s story when he finally asked me who I was.”
“Sounds about right,” I say lightly. “Then what happened?”
“And then he just kept on asking me questions. He never did that in college. He must have picked that up later on.”
“It was probably my mom. He once told me that she would have him practice making friendly conversation with her. She told him the key to getting someone to like you was to ask them questions.” I pause, feeling her memory slip around me like my favorite sweater that’s warm enough for winter and light enough for summer. “I guess he wanted you to like him.”
“Well, he didn’t have to work too hard at it,” she says jokingly.
“I think my mom would have liked you, too.” I pause only a moment before I amend my statement. “Scratch that. Iknowshe would have liked you.”
“That’s very kind of you to say, and I hope it’s true. From what your dad told me, Gianna was a very rare and wonderful person.” Words suddenly seem to fail me, and I only nod as Cassie goes on. “You know, being the mother of a girl myself, I thought dating someone with a daughter would be easier than it was. I’m not saying that you were difficult, because you truly weren’t, but in the beginning, I was honestly scared to death of you.”
“Of me?” I ask disbelievingly.
“Yes, you. I mean, here I was, some strange woman you hardly knew, moving into your house, dating your dad... I would have hated me if the roles were reversed.”
