Page 75 of Reeves

Too formal.

I delete it.

I start again.

I realize Benjy might be expecting me at the beach today. I didn't want to make plans without checking with you first, but I'm available if he still wants to work on the pirate trap.

I read it twice. It's clumsy, but honest.

I hesitate for a second before I tap it. The message disappears into the quiet morning.

Now I wait.

Three minutes later, the phone dings with Charli’s response.

He’s been talking about it all morning. We’re at the house now, but we can head to the beach in about an hour if you want to make the drive again.

I read the message twice.

Benjy woke up planning. Based on how much he kept going on yesterday, he’s probably walked Charli through the new trap design ten times already.

I set the phone on the dresser and walk to the window again. The garden spreads out below, perfectly maintained. Every hedge trimmed. Every flower bed weeded. The kind of order that requires constant attention.

Her message isn’t a demand. It isn’t pressure. Just information, offered in Charli’s careful way.

She keeps opening the door, and it's up to me whether I want to walk through it. I can’t decide if that makes this easier or harder.

I change out of my jeans into shorts. I work my arm in slow circles until the stiffness fades enough to pull the shirt over my head.

Two more ibuprofen go down with water from the bathroom tap. The pills rattle in the bottle when I set it back on the counter. There aren’t many left. Hopefully enough to get me back to base before I run out. If not, I’ll have to switch to the over-the-counter stuff, which barely touches the pain.

I grab my keys from the nightstand and pause at the bedroom door.

The hallway stretches toward the stairs, the same path I walked every day growing up. My parents built this house when I was a baby, and we never left. The carpet has been replacedtwice, but the layout has never changed. The same family photos still line the walls.

Some places carry too much history to let them disappear.

A memory surfaces before I can stop it.

I’m standing in this exact spot the morning after Mom’s funeral. I’m twelve years old, and the house is all wrong, even though we are all here.

Keller is sitting at the top of the stairs with his back against the wall. He’s been there since breakfast. Maybe longer. I want to sit next to him, but neither of us knows what to say.

None of us does.

Dad moves through the house as if nothing happened. Phone calls, meetings, quiet conversations with men in suits. Everything continues, like routine might hold the world together.

I stand in this hallway, waiting for someone to explain what comes next. I cry for someone to say anything that makes sense of the space she’s left behind.

No one ever does.

The memory fades as quickly as it came.

Ms. Landry appears from the kitchen with a coffee mug in her hand. I guess she is here after all. Damn, she's quiet.

“Heading out early today?” she asks.

“Yeah. I’ll be gone most of the day.”