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When Lily opens the door to her room, my heart lurches so hard I almost double over.
“Are you okay?” she asks as I grip the doorframe.
“Yeah,” I say shakily, waiting for the queasiness to pass. “I felt dizzy for a second.”
“Probably from this,” she says, gesturing around the room and then throwing her hands up. “Like, seriously? He just left the room like this.”
I wandered into this room once, a long time ago. I remember wondering where the baby was because it was so obviously a nursery.
And it still is.
One corner is piled with cardboard boxes, each labeled Lily’s Stuff. The room is painted a pale lavender, which isn’t bad in itself, but it’s the mural of baby bunnies, smiling sun, fluffy clouds, and bluebirds painted on the walls that’s just not okay for a sixteen-year-old girl’s bedroom.
As if in a trance, I cross the room and gently touch the smiling sun. My fingertips tingle. Bursts of images flash in my mind like a movie on fast-forward.
“Brianna painted this,” I say dreamily, but I have no idea how I know that. “She wanted the room to be happy and peaceful for the baby.” I move my hand lower, drifting over the baby bunny sitting on the green grass and flowers. “It’s the meadow behind the house.”
Two small bookcases—filled with nursery rhyme books and plush stuffed toys covered in dust—flank the double window on one wall.
But the very worst, most heart-wrenching part is the oak crib, the twirling-butterfly mobile above it, the changing table, and the matching rocking chair.
Oh, my poor Alex. All his hopes and dreams lived and died in this room. His grief wouldn’t let him look at these things, let alone touch and move them.
Against another wall is a small, twin-size bed that he must’ve put in here right before Lily moved in. And that’s where his efforts started and stopped.
“I don’t even know what to do,” Lily exclaims. “What’s wrong with him?” Her eyes fill with tears—not of anger, but of hopelessness.
I put my arms around her and pull her into a probably very unwanted hug.
“Shhh…” I stroke her glossy black hair.
“My grandfather was right…it’s like he doesn’t even care about me,” she sobs. “It’s awful.”
I gently pull away and look into her eyes. “That’s not it at all, Lily. The room is like this because he loves you so much that he couldn’t let go, not because he doesn’t care. Please believe me on that.”
“How can he expect me to sleep in here with all this? It’s giving me nightmares.”
“I’m going to help you fix it.”
“How?” she asks hopelessly.
“Wait right here.”
Leaving Lily upstairs, I march out to the barn and pull an electric screwdriver off Alex’s wall of tools.
He puts down his welding gun and watches me as I walk past him again. “Hey, do you know how to use that thing?”
I hold the tool up and press the button, the screw bit whirling above my head. “Stick the bit in and press the button. I’ve watched you do it a hundred times.”
“What exactly are you sticking it in?”
I give him a teasing grin. “Don’t worry about it. I got this.” If I tell him what I’m doing, I’m worried he’ll try to stop me or get involved. I have to do this alone to spare him any more grief.
“You better not ‘got this’ straight through your hand or one of my walls.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“What are you going to do with that?” Lily asks when I return to her bedroom.
“We’re going to take this furniture apart and put it in the basement.”
Surprise widens her eyes. “You know how to do that?”
“It’s all just screwed together.”
“What if he gets mad?”
“Then we’ll deal with it. Right now, we’re doing what’s best for you. This was obviously always meant to be your room, so let’s make it your room.”
She nods and smiles. “Okay.”
Two hours later, we have all the nursery furniture dismantled and piled neatly in the hallway. We emptied two of Lily’s cardboard clothes boxes, dusted off all the children’s books and toys and carefully placed them in the empty boxes to be stored downstairs.
An ache pressed in my chest the entire time, and twice, I came so close to tears I had to go to the restroom to blot my eyes and blow my nose.
I blamed my erratic emotions on PMS.
“I think I’m going to keep this one,” Lily says. I turn to see her holding a small plush red fox. “I feel like my mom must’ve got this one because of our last name.”
I push my hair over my shoulder and smile. “I think she’d really want you to have it.”
She looks down at the stuffed toy. “You won’t tell your friends, will you?”
“Of course not. I still sleep with my favorite stuffed toy on my bed.” I don’t tell her I have the same one she’s holding and that it's been my favorite since I was a baby.
