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One last time. Something pretty.

Heather passes two red shirts and the black trousers she likes on him. Her hand stops on a white chef’s jacket I haven’t seen him wear. It has two neat rows of buttons down the front, exactly like the tiny one downstairs.

She removes it from the wardrobe and lays it across the bed beside Simon.

Every Jamie before you broke something before I could get that far. She told me that while she brushed my hair. I never asked what happened to the Olivers who were here when they did.

Six hydrangeas. Three roses. I don’t know the order they went in. I know Simon just broke something. I wanted Simon gone. I don’t want to become the seventh hydrangea.

“I’ll make another,” I say.

Heather smooths one sleeve of the jacket across the bed. She doesn’t turn toward me.

“I can fix it.” I step closer but keep my hands away from her. “I can make the bracelet again.”

“It’s not the same.”

“I’ll make the same one.” My mouth moves faster when her hand reaches for the top button of Simon’s shirt. “I remember every color. I’ll put them back in the same order.”

Heather’s fingers stop against Simon’s collar. He looks from her hand to my face. There’s blood drying beneath his mouth, and he still has no idea that I’m trying to keep him out of the ground.

“The same beads,” Heather says. Her voice has gone quiet. “I don’t want replacements.”

“I’ll find them.”

“All of them.”

“Yes.” I nod before she finishes. “Every one.”

She turns her head and looks at me. I hold still while she decides whether my memory is worth more than the empty space around her wrist.

“You made it ugly on purpose,” she says.

“I did.” There’s no safe lie available, so I give her the truth. “I remember exactly how.”

Heather takes her hand from Simon’s shirt. She lifts the chef’s jacket from the bed, carries it back to the wardrobe and hangs it in the same place.

Simon finally looks frightened.

Heather closes the wardrobe. “You’re going to remake it exactly.”

“Yes, Heather.”

She takes Simon’s chin and turns his face toward her. “Don’t thank him. He isn’t doing this for you.”

Simon’s eyes find mine while her fingers remain around his jaw. He doesn’t have anything smart to say.

Heather takes all three of us back to the playroom.

Oliver moves carefully after the shock, and Simon keeps one arm near his ribs without touching them whenever Heather looks. I drop to the floor first and start gathering beads from beneath the table.

Heather settles onto the beanbag with the bracelet board in her lap. She places each recovered bead into a row while the three of us crawl around her.

Simon finds the yellow one beneath a saucer. Oliver retrieves two orange beads from beside the wall, and I reach beneath the dollhouse for a green one that rolled past the tiny kitchen. Nobody complains.

Heather sorts each color as we bring it to her. Orange, pink, yellow and both greens begin to rebuild the ugly little pattern I made on my first day in the house. I remember choosing every color she would hate because I thought making her wear something ugly gave me power over her.

Now I search for those beads like they’re teeth knocked out of my own mouth.