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An act of erasure on an impressive scale. But what would he do when he had to deal with the urn on the kitchen counter? And what would he say when the time came to deal with her?
She found her socks on the mat inside the front door, damp from the rain. Her toes recoiled at the cold wool, but the socks warmed quickly as she laced on her winter boots. They left a trail of wet prints into the room, where she hauled the box into her arms. Her tracks followed her all the way up the stairs.
She’d heard Sean tell the realtor it didn’t matter what the house sold for, so long as it sold quickly. He wouldn’t care about the footprints.
He couldn’t care. Caring would sever the ropes that kept the knot in place in the center of his chest. If he cared too much, he’d go limp as a cut marionette, incapable of speaking or functioning in the absence of the tight control he’d imposed on himself all those years ago.
At least, that’s how she imagined it felt to be him. So dangerously close to breaking irrevocably.
She kept waiting for him to break. Hoping for it.
Katie took the narrow stairs to the attic, memorizing the gaudy blossoms of the out-of-date wallpaper as the edges of the cardboard box gnawed at the tender insides of her arms. She found Sean on his knees by the window, surrounded by shoe boxes full of papers. He bent toward the weak light, reading something printed on a sheet of loose-leaf.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“A sstory I wrote for ssschool. Ssecond grade.”
“What’s it about?”
“My d-dog. Fffrank.”
“You had a dog?”
“N-no.” He looked up at her, saw the box, and frowned. “It sseems I m-made wuh-one up.”
He offered her the page, and she put down the box and took it. Impossible not to smile at his uncontrolled, childish print, his poor spelling, and the clumsy drawing of a dachshund.
“You really shouldn’t throw any of this away.”
“I c-c-c-can’t k-k-keep all this juh-junk.”
“You’re going to want it someday.”
He shook his head. “Sh-she k-k-kept everything.”
“I know.”
His eyes shone when he looked at her. “Sh-she wuh-was sso ffucking p-p-p-proud.”
“She loved you.”
“I hated her.”
Her heart twisted. He wanted her to judge him, but she couldn’t be his judge or his jury. She couldn’t absolve him. She could only love him, listen, wait for him to figure out how to absolve himself. “No, you didn’t.”
He grabbed her wrist and pulled her closer, beseeching her with eyes as dark as ink. The rain hammered against the windows, drummed down on the roof, and Sean begged. “I d-d-did. I had to. I either had t-to hate her or luh-love her, and I c-c-c-couldn’t k-k-keep luh-loving her when she—when she—”
He dropped his head and sank to his haunches. Katie stepped into his body, and he wrapped his arms around her waist to bury his face against her stomach. She held his head between her hands, thinking, Here it is. The guilt that had kept him in Camelot, finally coming out. This was the moment of collapse he needed so desperately.
But it didn’t come. His breath heaved into his lungs, and she waited for the sobbing, the broken confession, but he was soundless, so quiet and private even with his fingers digging into her hips and his face in her belly. So polite in his grief.
He wouldn’t let go of the control that had saved him all those years ago, and until he did, there was nothing she could do for him. No chance for them.
She sank her fingers into the short, dense thicket of his hair. “You can’t throw away the shrine.”
He stilled but said nothing.
“You’re going to want it.” She stroked his neck, his back, his shoulders. “You’re going to have a wife, a family, and they’ll wonder what you were like when you were young. It will matter to you. All of it.”
