Cassian stopped somewhere before the door here.
He was here. Drove through the night when the worst happened. And still could not go through the door.
• • •
I come home for summer.
I don’t tell him.
My dad picks me up from the airport. Keeps his hand on my arm at red lights. Like he needs to confirm I’m solid.
Like I might disappear if he stops checking.
I understand. I feel the same way about myself lately.
The house looks the same. Of course it does. Houses don’t know what happened. They just hold memories.
Her cardigan is gone from the hook by the door. I don’t ask where. I think my dad moved it somewhere he can still find it when he needs to.
The garden is full. Her daisies. All of them. Every color.
Still going. Still hers. Completely indifferent to the fact that she’s not here to tend them.
I stand at the back window and look at them for a long time.
And wish that I could somehow fill this emptiness.
At least for my dad, I have to try.
• • •
Then I go downstairs.
I stand in the middle of my room.
The window.
I have looked at this window my entire life.
Waiting. Hoping. Coming back to it the way you come back to a habit you know isn’t good for you but can’t stop.
Thirteen years of this window.
I walk over to it slowly.
I put my hand on the latch.
I stand there for a long moment.
Not deciding — I’ve already decided. That’s the thing.
The decision was made somewhere between the hospital and the drive home and walking into this room and seeing the windowexactly where it’s always been, exactly where I’ve always left it for him.
I think about being eight years old and the first time I left it open.
I think about being eleven and the tap tap in the dark.
I think about every night I stayed awake a little longer than I needed to, listening.
