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Grim shrugged.True enough.There were no tourists in their town. The regular folk were dirt poor. He wouldn’t argue the point because the kid was right. “Your English is good,” he noted.
“My mother taught me and my brother,” he said. “She wanted us to go to the USA.”
Grim turned at the clanking sound that indicated the roll and cup of water were arriving. He moved to the back of his cage. He was so fucking thirsty.
The small door in the wall opened, and he reached for the food and the water. He saw Cedro doing the same next to him. Grim was surprised to see that his roll was on a tray this time, whereas before it’d arrived on nothing. He pulled it forward, lifting the white napkin that sat next to the roll, his heart giving a jolt at what he saw lying beneath it. A paper poppy, the red-orange tissue delicate, the stem made of apipe cleaner wrapped in green floral tape. He ran his finger along the stem, encountering a series of very small bumps. They almost felt like—
“I got some candies,” Cedro said from next to him. Grim looked over to see Cedro holding up two red-and-white-striped peppermint candies in clear plastic wrappers.
What the hell is this?
He ran his fingers along the stem one more time. “What do peppermints mean to you, Cedro?” Grim asked.
“Mean to me?”
“Yeah.”
Cedro looked confused. “My dad used to bring them home sometimes,” he said.
His dad. Okay.
“Why do you ask? What does that flower mean to you?” He pointed at what had been delivered to Grim.
“Nothing,” he said. “Just something pretty, I guess.” He bent the stem around one of the upper bars, decorating his cage. He didn’t tell Cedro that Poppy had been his nickname for his daughter, and someone wanted him to think about her. Someone was sending a message.Why?And who?
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The door to the storage locker let out a high-pitched squeal as it rolled upward, revealing the contents Noelle had hastily unloaded with Paula and Paula’s parents eight years before. She took a deep breath of the still night air before stepping into the small musty space piled with furniture and boxes.
“Where should we start?” Evan asked from behind her.
She dragged a finger over a cardboard box, disturbing the layers of dust. She’d considered telling Evan she wanted to do this alone. But when she really thought about it, she realized shedidn’twant to do this alone. She wanted him with her. Once, she’d all but been turned inside out in his presence. He knew the all of her, and vice versa. It seemed that comfort level hadn’t quite faded as much as she’d imagined, because she found she wasn’t the least bit concerned with showing her emotions in front of him. It felt like second nature. Interesting. Slightly concerning. But true.
“His organizer would have been with the things I cleaned out from his bedside table. Most of the boxes are labeled.” He hadn’t had an office, nor had he needed one. His equipment and tools had been stored in his truck. Paula had very kindly listed those things for sale, including his vehicle, and sent her a check from the proceeds. She’d used themoney to pay off the last of her father’s bills and the rest to fund her relocation to South Carolina. The other more personal items, including some furniture, Noelle had moved here, intending to go through it all one day, possibly keeping some of the pieces that reminded her of her mother. That had never happened, and she’d instead continued to make the seventy-nine-dollar-a-month payment that kept her from being where she was right that second.
It hurt. Being surrounded by these things. Memories came hard and fast as she glanced around at the recliner her dad had fallen asleep in so many nights, now covered in a sheet, to the box labeledDishesthat she knew contained the blue-and-white-flowered set her mother had picked out and she had eaten on all her childhood.
There were photos here, too, her parents’ wedding album, school pictures of her through the years. It was odd, because things didn’t hold people inside them, but in a way they alsodid, because Noelle didn’t think she’d have had a flash of her mother’s tender smile or the sleeveless yellow top she’d worn as she’d placed a bandage on her knee if she hadn’t glimpsed the old pink scooter her dad had kept in the garage even after Noelle was far too big for it. Objects conjured memories, and that was a gift, she supposed. But also sadness, not only because of the stirred emotion, but because she wondered how many items she’d tossed that carried the ability to evoke a memory that now she could never get back. Letting go was painful, deeply so.
How many times had Paula offered to clear this space out for her? To toss the contents, or donate it, or whatever Noelle wanted? But Noelle had consistently said no. It was in another state and inaccessible to her unless she boarded a plane to get to it, but still ... she never could bring herself to imagine it ... gone.
She suddenly understood why people were hoarders. Those who had lost so much already were scared to death of losing more. And so they held on, no matter the terrible clutter and filth it created.
But she wasn’t here to diagnose the reason for other people’s mental health disorders, and she needed to stop her mind from wandering so far and wide. She was on a mission.
Evan was crouched behind a pile of boxes, craning his neck as he looked for the place where she’d jotted a note about the contents with a Sharpie. “It looks like this is all kitchen stuff,” he said. “Even though the bed is over here.” He nodded to the wooden headboard leaning against the wall.
She looked at the boxes he was shifting around. The tape had peeled off the tops and was hanging loosely so that a few of them were gaping open. She frowned, glad they were kitchen items and not things that couldn’t be cleaned or that bugs or moisture might ruin.
Like journal paper.
She looked around, trying to remember unloading these items from Paula’s dad’s truck. She pressed her lips together, casting her mind back before walking to two boxes piled one on top of the other. She leaned around them. “Here,” she said, picking up the box on top and setting it on the floor and then leaning down and picking up the one beneath it. A cloud of dust wafted into the air, and she coughed as she averted her head.
She turned toward Evan, and he took it from her. It was heavy, and she knew that was because there were books inside. But his papers should be in there, too, including his collection of organizers. He’d kept them all, years’ worth.
“Check inside,” she said. “Make sure that’s the right one.”
Evan took his keys from his pocket, using one to slice down the middle of the tape, and then Noelle stepped forward, opening the flaps to peer inside.Yes.Just as she’d thought, there was his collection of organizers, her mother’s books piled just beneath them. “That’s it,” she breathed, and she could hear the emotion in her voice. She hadn’t tried to hide it.
