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I’m pretty sure Jack didn’t speak even one unnecessary word as he walked me around and gave me the tour.
I was totally charmed by the stucco walls, exposed ceiling beams, rounded doorways, red ceramic-tile floor, and his mom’s collection of chicken figurines on the breakfront. Plus, the decorative painted tiles in the bathrooms and in the kitchen. Windows everywhere, and sunlight, and bougainvillea blossoms in every view. There was a garden that seemed to go on forever near a side porch draped with honeysuckle, and a screened porch bigger than a living room off the other side. It was like an enchanted place from another time.
It was a late October day, and all the windows were open. The kitchen had cotton gingham café curtains, and a bread box, and an old-timey radio on the counter. There were salt and pepper shakers in the shapes of ears of corn at the table. Jack’s dad kept a record player on the counter at the far end of the kitchen, and Jack opened up the cabinets above it to show me—instead of dishes, like you might expect—his massive record collection, arranged by decade.
I mean, the whole situation was charming.
Except, maybe, for Jack.
I followed him through a long living room, with three sofas arranged around a giant stucco fireplace, and then into a hallway that led to the bedrooms.
The hallway was covered—absolutely wallpapered—with framed family photos. And half of them, at least, were of three boys, smiling big and goofy into camera after camera.
Jack and I both stopped at the sight.
Like neither of us had ever seen it before.
I touched a photo of a young Jack up on a young Hank’s shoulders—while Hank held their youngest brother upside down by his ankles. “This is you and your brothers?” I asked.
Jack nodded, his eyes traveling around the wall.
“Looks like you had a lot of fun.”
Jack nodded again.
Then he said, so quiet I could barely hear, “I haven’t been here since the funeral.”
Jack kept his eyes on the photos, so I did, too.
Most of them were snapshots. The boys as toddlers running in a field of bluebonnets. Down at the beach in the waves. Eating puffs of cotton candy bigger than their heads. Then, older: Tall and skinny in football uniforms. Doing matching handstands. Dangling fish at the ends of poles. On horseback. At the top of a ski slope. Playing cards. Shooting baskets. Dressed up for prom. Hamming it up.
Totally ordinary.
And so heartbreaking.
Just as I found myself thinking I could admire those photos all afternoon, Jack pulled in a sharp breath, opened the door to his bedroom, and charged away, like he couldn’t take it one more second.
I followed him inside.
Jack’s room was the same as the rest of the house—same ceramic-tile floor and stucco walls, same French doors overlooking bright pink flowers, same arched doorways. But his room felt more manly, somehow. Leatherier. It smelled like iron, and had an old saddle in the corner, and an Eames chair by the window.
“This is your room?” I asked, to be sure.
“Our room,” Jack said.
Of course. We’d be sharing a room. We were adults, after all. Adults in a fake relationship.
“You can have the dresser,” Jack said, dropping his suitcase on the floor beside the saddle.
“We can share,” I said.
But Jack shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”
Next, I looked at the bed. “Is that a double bed?”
Jack frowned, and it was clear he’d never thought about it. “Maybe.”
“Do you fit in that bed?”
