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I go down on my knees and crawl under the bed. Dust, paperback novels I haven’t seen in years, and twenty-three cents.
“What are you looking for?” Grandad asks me.
“Nothing,” I say.
* * *
When we were little, Mom would stand Philip and Barron and me next to each other and tell us that family was everything, that we were the only people we could really rely on. Then she would touch our shoulders with her bare hands, each in turn, and we would be suffused with love for one another, suffocated by love.
“Promise your brothers that you will love one another forever and ever and that you will do whatever you have to to protect one another. You will never hurt one another. You will never steal from one another. Family is the most important thing. There is no one who will love you like your family.”
We would hug and cry and promise.
Emotion work fades over months and months, until a year later you feel silly about the stuff you did and said when you were worked, but you don’t forget what it was like to be glutted with those emotions.
Those were the only times I’ve ever felt safe.
* * *
Still holding the coffee, I walk outside to clear my head. One foot in front of the other. The air is cold and clean, and I suck in lungfuls like a drowning man.
Things fall out of pockets, I tell myself, and figure that before I melt down completely, I should check the car. If it’s there, wedged down in the seat or glittering on one of the floor mats, I am going to feel pretty stupid. I hope I get to feel stupid.
Impulsively I flip open my cell. There are a couple of missed calls from my mother—she must hate not being able to call me on a landline—but I ignore them and call Barron. I need someone to answer questions, someone I can trust not to protect me. The call goes right to voice mail. I stand there, hitting redial again and again, listening to the ringing. I don’t know who else to phone. Finally it occurs to me that there might be a way to call his dorm room directly.
I phone the main number for Princeton. They can’t seem to find his room, but I remember his roommate’s name.
A girl picks up, her voice throaty and soft, like the phone woke her.
“Oh, hey,” I say. “I’m looking for my brother Barron?”
“Barron doesn’t go to school here anymore,” she says.
“What?”
“He dropped out a couple of months into the year.” She sounds impatient, no longer sleepy. “You’re his brother? He left a bunch of his stuff, you know.”
“He’s forgetful.” Barron has always been forgetful, but right now forgetting seems ominous. “I can pick up whatever he left.”
“I already mailed it.” She stops speaking abruptly, and I wonder what went on between the two of them. I can’t imagine Barron dropping out of school because of a girl, but I can’t imagine Barron dropping out of Princeton for any reason. “I got tired of him promising to come get it and never showing up. He never even gave me money for the postage.”
My mind races. “The address you mailed all that stuff to—do you still have it?”
“Yeah. You sure you’re his brother?”
“It’s my fault I don’t know where he is,” I lie quickly. “After dad died I was a real brat. We had a fight at the funeral and I wouldn’t take any of his calls.” I’m amazed when my voice hitches in the right place automatically.
“Oh,” she says.
“Look, I just want to tell him how sorry I am,” I say, further embroidering my tale. I don’t know if I sound sorry. What I feel is a cold sort of dread.
I hear the rustling of papers along the line. “Do you have a pen?”
I write the address on my hand, thank her, and hang up as I walk back to the house. There I find my grandfather stacking up dozens of holiday cards he’s pulling out from behind a dresser. Glitter dusts his gloves. It’s odd how empty the rooms look stripped of junk. My footsteps echo.
“Hey,” I say. “I need the car again.”
“We still got the bedroom upstairs to do,” he says. “Besides the porch and the parlor. And even the rooms that are done we got to box up.”
