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“Oh, thank goodness. . .” I exhale a sigh, grateful that at least something in my house still feels normal.
I walk over to the desk and open the bottom drawer. I pull out my pink binder. “This is everything you’d need to steal my identity.” I flip through it quickly, thankful that it’s all still okay. My insurance information, credit card details, passport, bank paperwork—it’s all here. I slip it into the drawstring bag.
I look around the room. “I suppose it’s too much to ask to take all of the photos off the wall, huh?”
He walks over to my bookshelf and picks up a framed photo of me and Mack at our high school graduation. “You can take a few of them.”
I open the bag up, and he drops it inside.
“Don’t worry, none of this stuff is going anywhere,” he says.
I nod, then follow him back out into the hall. I point in the direction of the kitchen at the back of the house, and he leads the way. My purse is hanging there on one of the back hooks, so I grab it and toss it in my bag. Now I have my driver’s license and access to my car.
There are good things happening here, too.
I mentally tell myself this over and over because right now, I have to hold on to the good things.
I look around the kitchen. “My KitchenAid mixer looks okay.”
“Almost everything in here is okay,” Owen says. “I think they got it out before there was too much damage to the back of the house.”
But the same can’t be said for the living room. The smoke coated everything—the built-in shelves, the furniture, the walls, the ceiling. There are puddles still on the ground, intermittent drips from the floor above.
“This room is going to need some work,” he says.
We stop at the bottom of the stairs, and I don’t have to wait for Owen to tell me we aren’t going to risk it. I can tell by the condition of the stairs, stained from water and fire, that it’s not safe.
“Do you have clothes anywhere else in the house?”
“My laundry room,” I say. “I think there might be some stuff in there.”
“Okay, where’s that?”
“Basement.”
He nods, then moves toward the basement door.
I feel the overwhelming need to talk about something.
“Is it weird for you?” I blurt.
He turns. “Is what weird?”
“Being back here. At the scene of a fire. It’s weird for me. I’m not sure how to feel, but I know it doesn’t feel. . .right.”
He pauses, hand on the doorknob. “It’s different for different people. I’m more concerned about how it is for you. I know all about the emotional toll a trauma like this can take.”
Thoughtful. Again.
Still.
“It is hard,” I say, honestly. “I feel homeless.”
He stands there, watching me, and I feel like I’ve just cracked myself open and offered him a peek inside.
I backtrack with, “But it’s okay. I know I’ll be okay.”
“You don’t have to do that, you know.”
