A year and a half later, it was still down there, and I still didn't know what to do with it.
You weren't supposed to be relieved.
You weren't supposed to wake up the morning after your grandmother died and feel the house get quiet in a way you hadn't realized had been loud. You weren't supposed to notice the smell of her medication finally fading out of the spare bedroom. You weren't supposed to walk into your kitchen at six in the morning and think,I can drink my coffee standin' up.
But I had.
And I couldn't put the feeling down long enough to pack a box.
I did what I'd been doing for a year and a half instead. I drove to the gym.
I pulled into the driveway at nine.
Across the street, the Matthews place had a car in the driveway.
It had been there for about two weeks. Before that, the house had been dark. Four years of that kind of dark. Then the Matthews girl had come back.
Astrid.
I'd summered at my grandmother's house most of my childhood, and the Matthews had been the family in that house. They had a daughter three years younger than me. Astrid, at fifteen, crouched on her front lawn one summer afternoon, working over a sparrow with a broken wing.
I'd seen her maybe five times in the last two weeks. Unloading a trailer. Bringing groceries in. Walking the river trail in the mornings. Sitting on her porch one evening with a glass of wine.
I'd caught myself watching every time. I told myself it was because I hadn't seen her since we were kids.
She had honey-brown hair she wore long. Lean and easy in her body, the way some women are.
I'd been thinking about walking over and saying hi more than once. Figured she'd half-remember me. I was going to do it. I just hadn't figured out what I'd say first.
Penny was at the screen door before I had the truck off, tail going.
I let myself in and dropped the gym bag by the door.
"Hey, old girl."
She huffed. Her tail was at half-mast, the way it always was for me, never a full wag and never resting, just on. She came up against my leg the way she did every morning.
I went down on one knee and put my hands on either side of her face.
She was twelve, a golden retriever going white at the muzzle and slower in the hips than she'd been even six months ago. She was my grandmother's, and she'd been mine since the October before my grandmother died. Twelve years old and on her second human.
"You wait by the door every time," I said. "You don't have to. I always come back."
She huffed again.
I stood and put her morning food in the bowl. She came over slowly, the way she'd been coming over for weeks, and sniffed at it. Picked at the edges. She'd been on wet food for two months now, and it still took her twenty minutes to eat half of it.
I'd had her in to see Dr. Caldwell twice over the past month. Caldwell had run her labs and told me twice she was getting old, and twice I'd taken his word for it. It hadn't stopped me from watching her at the bowl every morning, counting how many bites she actually took.
Penny padded over to the back door after she was done.
The yellow dog Penny was waiting for hadn't come yet today. He'd been letting himself in through the back gate every morning for the last week and a half—coming to me first, sitting at my feet, taking a scratch, then going to find her. They'd run the yard. He'd drink her water. He'd let himself out the same way he'd come in. I figured his owner would show up eventually. Penny was happier than she'd been in months.
I wondered where he lived.
I drank my coffee at the counter and watched her settle.
The boxes were still in the hallway.
