He gives me that pitying look that I’m starting to hate.
“I’m sorry about your loss. I really am. I wish I could make this easier for you, but we need to move in,” he says.
Grace takes my hand and smiles. “We’ll start with the rest of the house. Maybe you’ll find some courage to go through the room, and if not, I’ll make sure we don’t touch it until you’re ready.”
“Are you sure?”
She nods.
I have two rooms in this house. My childhood room and my adult room. Grandma and I liked to call them the before and the after.
My after room is the one I emptied this week. I moved everything, including my bed, to the guesthouse.
The other room is closed, just like my grandparents’ bedroom. I haven’t been in there since I moved out of this house before my junior year of high school.
Though, it’s hard to go through their things and pack everything they left behind, it is joyful to remember them. Grace is with me while I do it. She’s not as bad as I thought she was when I first met her. I guess sometimes people need to warm up to others before they become friendly.
When we’re in front of the before room, I want to run away. Maybe tape a sign that says do not enter, sad, bitter memories inside.
Grace asks, “Whose room was this?”
“Mine,” I answer.
“I thought you said you moved all your things?” she asks, confused.
“Uh…Umm…” I have nothing to say. Really.
“We have to go inside,” she says cautiously.
“I know,” I whisper. “It’s just…complicated. It has a lot of memories from my childhood.”
She arches an eyebrow. “You grew up with your grandparents?”
I nod. “It was easier for everyone. Actually, I had three rooms while growing up.”
“Your parents are divorced?”
“No, but they had demanding jobs. After I was born, they realized that neither one of them had much time for their newborn. One of them had to give up their careers, and neither wanted to be the stay-at-home parent. So, they decided it was best if I stayed with my grandparents during the week. Some weekends, they’d come to Luna Harbor. They own a small house closer to the town square. I’d stay with them there. That’s where my second room was. Other weekends, my grandparents would take me to Seattle, and I’d stay in room number three.”
“Sounds like an adventure,” she says, and I smile because it was to me. She understands. Manelik thought it was because they didn’t love me. No one outside my family gets it.
Plus, during those weekends I was in Seattle, I got to see Mane. That memory hits me right in the chest, and my lungs labor to fill with oxygen. I don’t want to remember him.
“You can do it,” Grace says encouragingly.
I place my hand on the doorknob. The tips of my fingers are numb. My temples throb with a loud, pounding ache.
No. I can’t go inside. But I have to.
Finally, I push open the door. The scent of piled dust and lavender is overpowering my nose. I crinkle it after I sneeze.
“You like purple?” she asks, looking at my bedding.
“I do, but it’s not my favorite color. Grandma bought that comforter during a big sale, and it’s pretty cute. I just decorated the room around it.”
Grace walks toward my corkboard where I have all the pictures of my family and friends. When she comes to one of Mane and me, she smiles. “How old were you two?”
“I think six and eight,” I respond. We were by the fountain, eating ice cream and holding hands. We had just come from the lake where we loved to play.
I pull it off the board and dump it inside the box Grace brought. I do the same with most of the pictures.
“Bad memories?”
“Painful,” I answer.
“Is that why this room is closed?”
I nod.
“When was the last time you were here?”
“Summer before my senior year of high school,” I respond. “My parents and I decided that it’d be best if I switched high schools during my junior year. According to them, it was to guarantee my admission to either MIT or Columbia. I came to visit but not often and then…”
“You look a lot like your mom,” she says.
I notice she’s holding the picture frame that’s next to my bed. Before I can get to her, she picks up the second one. She twists her mouth. I pray that she doesn’t recognize Manelik, but I’m just kidding myself. After all, he’s famous. Too famous. Everyone knows the drummer of Too Far from Grace.
All she says is, “how old were you?”
“That’s my sixteenth birthday,” I say.
I take both frames and set them inside of the box.
“Are your parents still working in Seattle?”
I swallow hard. “Can we please not talk about them?”
I’m seconds from crying because all the memories of everyone are trying to flood my brain and my heart. I should’ve come into this room and emptied it a long time ago. I just wasn’t ready to do it.
I’ll never be ready for this.
I cry when I see a picture of Mom brushing my hair. I’m wearing a leotard and a tutu. I wanted so bad to be a ballerina that month. Every month I changed what I wanted to be when I grew up, and Mom said I could be anything. She pushed me to believe in myself. I wish she were here telling me that this is just a moment, that it’ll be over soon, but she’s not. She’s gone, and this isn’t just a moment. It’s my life.
“Why don’t I take care of all the pictures while you go through the rest of your things?” Grace says, offering me a tissue.
“Sorry,” I sniff, drying my tears. “She died when I was a senior in high school. Dad…he’s in a long-term care facility.”
I sit on the bed and cry. They are volatile sobs that echo inside the walls that feel like they’re closing in, almost squeezing me.
“No one knows,” I say, grabbing another tissue.
“I’m sorry.” She pats my arm.
“Everyone in town thinks they just don’t care about visiting Luna Harbor. No one misses them but me.”
Not even when I visit Dad do I allow myself to cry.
“It’s so unfair. One day I had my future planned. I had my acceptance to Columbia. I was going to be close to my boyfriend. Then everything imploded, and I lost everything and everyone.”
I don’t know why I’m telling all this to a stranger. Probably because I’m in the place where I hid my old life. I usually freeze and go mute when someone asks me about them, but not today.
“Sorry,” I apologize again. “You didn’t sign up to deal with my mental breakdown.”
When I lift my gaze, she squats right in front of me and holds another tissue. “It’s okay to let everything out.”
“I’d appreciate it if you don’t mention any of…no one knows about my parents,” I confess. “My grandparents were particular about our family and the town.”
“Hey, don’t be sorry. I actually feel like an ass for making you be here. Why are you doing it? You could’ve said no to leasing it.”
I look at her and sigh. Other than Langdon and the bank, no one knows how bad my finances are. Not even Siobhan knows about it.