“Okay. Go hit it out of the park. I know you’ve got this,” Reese reassured her.
“Thank you, baby. I’ll see you this afternoon.”
She watched Matty get out of the car and enter the building. Her belly churned with nervousness even though she wasn’t the one taking the test. She hoped Matty did well.
While Matty was doing her testing, Reese had arranged for Haley to come over to her house. It was the first Saturday in months that they were both available to do something. Haley wanted to see the progress on the house, so it only seemed appropriate that they work on it for a while. She was torn between excitement and dread. They were tackling Joyce’s room.
When she got home, Haley was just parking her massive SUV on the street in front of the house.
“I brought us caffeine,” she beamed at Reese as she held up two iced coffees.
“Good, we’ll need it.”
She let them into the house.
“Oh wow. This place is huge,” gasped Haley at the sight of the living room.
Pride swelled in her chest. “Yep, it’s crazy how different it looks. Matty and I are going to rip this carpet out tomorrow, and if we have time, start installing the new floor. Come on, let’s grab trash bags and gloves and get started.”
At this point, Reese was a pro at cleaning out rooms. However, this one would be different.
When they arrived upstairs, they just stared at the closed door for a moment. She had shut it the day she first came back and hadn’t opened it since.
“Are you going to be able to do this?” Haley asked quietly. Her worry was evident.
“Yes. It needs to be done, and I’m more at peace with the house than ever. I need to do this.”
“Are you going to move into it? I assume it’s bigger.”
She shook her head, grabbing the doorknob. “No. My closet and hers are on the same wall. I’m going to knock the wall out and expand mine, then turn this one into an office and craft room. Matty said it wouldn’t be too hard to do.”
With a deep breath, she threw open the door. Or so she tried to. The hoard prevented it from opening fully.
“Jesus, that’s a lot of junk,” breathed Haley.
Reese nodded. The room was full, with a path that led to the bed, which also seemed to be packed. A small space was the only clear spot where Joyce would sleep. She tried to push back the mental image. “Okay, so here’s how we’ll do this. I don’t want to keep anything. The piles of clothes are gross, and the food and vodka bottles are everywhere. We’re goingto start filling trash bags while making our way over to that window. The dumpster is under there. We can climb out the window onto the first-floor’s roof and pitch it over. I don’t want to keep anything except that somewhere in this room is a jewelry box and a box filled with old coins my grandfather collected. Everything else is tossed.”
“Got it.”
The room was full, but not as bad as Reese had expected. Piles consisted of mostly clothing, vodka bottles, and dozens of shoes, some in boxes but mostly loose of varying sizes. Some men’s, some women’s, even some children’s.
“Why does she have so much stuff that is obviously not for her? These are size fifteen men’s sneakers,” Haley asked, holding the shoes up between pinched fingers with a look of disgust.
Reese dug through a purse with a broken strap. She added the roughly three dollars in change to the container they designated for money or jewelry. “I seriously think it was an act of defiance against me. She filled this house with junk just so I would have to go through it. Do you know what I found inside my closet? Three crates full of strawberry pie filling.”
Haley frowned. “You’re allergic to strawberries.”
“Exactly.”
“Reese, that’s awful.”
“Yep. Honestly, at this point, I’m getting pretty numb to it. I just want this to be over with. I’m moving on. I’m making this house mine. I’m getting to see you more. I’m making friends at work. And I have a girlfriend whom I really like. I just need this shit gone so I can go on with my life.”
“Speaking of her, how are things going?”
She shrugged, trying to be nonchalant, but the grin on her face was anything but. “It’s going well. It’s been a few weeks since we got back together and things have been great. I think she was just scared and didn’t know what to do. She likes living in a safe bubble of routine, so when it wasn’t so safe, she freaked out.”
“Sticks to a routine, huh? Sounds like someone I know.” She cut her eyes to Reese.
