My parents and Abe were already up, and when I told them I was going to go over to Aunt Helen’s, they asked if they could come with me. I’d forgotten about the other task Harry had given us, the uncomfortable prospect of pawing through my aunt’s things, but it was nice to know that I didn’t have to be alone.
The four of us got into the car and drove over to her house. I felt a tight ball of nerves growing inside me.
When Aunt Helen and I were in the car together we always counted cars, blues against reds, to see who would find the most of their color first. I found myself counting blue cars now, trying to remember if breast cancer was genetic or random. I couldn’t recall what any of my grandparents had died from; it had all been when Abe and I were little. We weren’t allowed to go to the funerals, and I don’t think anybody even really explained what death meant. I wish I’d never had to find out.
Next to me, Abe played some game on his phone. The screen was a mess of different-colored dots. I had watched him play that game for months, and I still didn’t understand what the point was.
“Are you happy about getting her books?” I asked him,trying to stop the downward spiral of my brain.
“Are you kidding? Of course I’m happy. She probably has thousands of books.”
“I don’t know where you’re going to put them all.”
“Guest bedroom,” he said immediately. Clearly he’d already thought about it. “All those built-in bookcases just collecting dust. Maybe I’ll move into it, switch rooms. Maybe I’ll take it as my second bedroom. You know she has first editions of every single Roald Dahl book, right? I can’t wait to...” He blushed, turned away from me, and cleared his throat.
“Were you about to saysmell them?” I said.
“Obviously no,” he mumbled.
“You know it’s mildew, right? That’s what you’re smelling.”
“It’s not mildew,” he said, raising his voice slightly, then lowering it when he realized he was getting defensive about books. “It’s the chemical breakdown of... You know what? It’s none of your business.”
“You’re going to get high off ink.”
“I’m not even talking about this with you,” he hissed.
I looked out the window instead, alarmed to find that we were already there, already pulling into her driveway. I tried hard not to imagine her on the front porch, waiting for us, with slippered feet and feathery blond hair piled in a bun on top of her head.
I hadn’t been here in a while.
Aunt Helen had gone into the hospital and stayed there for the last few weeks of her life. There wasn’t enough time to get hospice care or attempt to move her. We made her room as cozy as we could and every day we watched her slip further and further away from us. I kept hoping for a miracle. And then I stopped hoping for a miracle and just hoped, at least, that it would be painless.
When she died, I texted Em over and over, standing in Aunt Helen’s hospital room as everyone took their turns saying good-bye.
What do you think happens when you die?
Do you think it hurts? I mean, do you think every single death is painful?
Do you think about it ever? Like just the fact that we are all definitely, absolutely going to die one day?
Is life even worth living?
What are any of us even doing here? Is there a point to any of this?
“Well, here we are,” Mom said after we’d already been there for two or three minutes, none of us talking to each other, the car still idling. She reached over my father’s leg and shut the engine off.
“Here we are,” he echoed sadly.
Aunt Helen’s house was a white Victorian with a wraparound porch and turrets and gables. Like something out of a haunted house storybook, only not at all frightening.Or at night maybe a little frightening. Right now: sad and empty.
I got out of the car first and went around back to get the key, which was under a plant on her deck. It was a spare key, just the single one on an old and tarnished brass keychain, a Mickey Mouse head. I unlocked the back door of the house and walked slowly to the front, where my family was waiting. I just wanted a minute by myself.
The house was big and still and slightly stale—although maybe I was only imagining that. But the air tasted off, and I opened a few windows as I went, pulling back curtains and letting the sunlight in. We could live here if we wanted to. Harry had made it clear that we could take whatever we wanted, and I’m sure that included this house. Or any of Aunt Helen’s houses. Or any of her things. But I knew we’d never live here, because it was an hour from our own home and because it was too big and we were used to much less. And because any time we woke up, any time we walked around, we’d be pushing through her ghost. A hundred of her ghosts. We’d eat cereal with her and water the flowers with her and read books with her breathing down our necks. No, the house had to move on. The house was meant for someone else.
“Good-bye, house,” I whispered tentatively into the front entranceway.
But my words fell flat and didn’t hold any meaning.
