“Forever would be the only long enough.”
“I thought we were past that kind of talk.” Charlie stopped and stared out at the overgrown garden.
“I’m sorry.” She didn’t sound as if she meant it.
“Maryann. This plan has been talked to death. Let’s just do it.”
“There are things to consider. Like the girls.” My mom plunged her hands into her hair, making the waves stand on end. I leaned farther out the window.
“They’re stronger than you think. And smarter, too,” he said. I had to stop myself from nodding.
“That’s not it.” Her voice caught in her throat. She’d started to cry the last time I’d heard them talk, too. Charlie took her elbow gently, like he’d done it before. “I will tell them,” she said. “I will. But not today.” Tell us what?
He turned and the setting sun hit his face, making it glow. For a minute, he wore a sweet expression. “If we don’t go forward with our plan now, we might never.”
“I need time to mourn my husband. And the girls need to mourn their dad.” Just as I was sighing in relief that my mom hadn’t forgotten my dad completely, Charlie took her by both shoulders and said something low under his breath. I expected them to start making out like in the Spanish soap operas I used to sneak-watch, but she wrenched away from him.
“I know that,” she said. “Don’t you think I know that?”
She stalked off toward the moving truck. It was emblazoned with a huge logo: big family movers. It felt like a joke at our expense. Maybe we should have called Newly Small Family Movers instead.
Charlie brought a hand to his mouth, like he’d been slapped. Then he crunched over the gravel toward the driveway.
“Why are you hanging halfway out the window?” Blythe was right behind me. I nearly fell out.
“I’m spying on Mom and Charlie.” She peeked past me, but they were gone. “Or I was. You don’t think they’re . . . together?”
She scowled at the idea. “Dad died a week ago,” she said.
I nodded, swallowing the pain of hearing died and Dad out loud. She was right. Of course they weren’t together. But then, what just happened? I turned back to see Charlie carrying a box from the moving truck to a black rehabbed Mustang. He stopped and carefully placed the box into the trunk. I poked Blythe, who’d begun sifting through my clothes.
“He’s taking boxes from the moving truck.” Blythe leaned over my shoulder again, watching as Charlie stepped away to reveal a trunk full of white boxes.
“Those are Dad’s,” Blythe whispered. “I used the fancy boxes to pack his office.”
Ah yes, of course she had. Because that was Blythe. Neat, orderly, the way I like it Blythe. But this was me: I didn’t care how good a friend Charlie was to my dad or who he was to my mom—he wasn’t taking my dad’s things. Because even I couldn’t take anything of his—not yet. Blythe had taken Dad’s fountain pen, Dad’s leather briefcase (which now housed her electronics), and two of Dad’s old V-neck sweaters. But I’d taken nothing but the book of Emily Dickinson’s poetry that was once his but now already belonged to me. Because . . . how could I choose? It was like saying: I want this part of you, but not that part. As if there were good parts to keep, and others to toss out like last year’s fashion after a Milan show. I could never do that to my dad.
Charlie had left the trunk open, like he planned to keep filling it. I turned to Blythe. “We have to stop him,” I said.
Blythe groaned. “It’s probably just books.”
“I don’t care what it is. He can’t have it.”
No one was taking a single piece of my dad from me.
3
THE HEART IS THE CAPITAL OF MY MIND
I ran to Charlie’s Mustang, but the trunk was closed and locked. I glanced around, but the only people nearby were a couple of guys in navy big family movers T-shirts. What was he planning to do with my dad’s stuff, anyhow? Maybe it was just books, but he didn’t have the right to take them. Beneath the trunk’s shelby insignia was a keyhole. I pushed it like a button; no luck. I walked around the car to see if it was unlocked. Maybe it had one of those trunk-opening levers. But the doors were locked, too.
I had to get in there.
What if Charlie was planning to take the boxes to the Salvation Army or to the dump? And where was he, anyhow? I glanced around again and tried the trunk one last time. I dug in with both hands, bouncing on my toes. Nothing. I let my hands flop down on the warm metal.
“Need some help?”
I spun to find a young guy with dark wavy hair and light brown skin watching me, his thumbs hooked through his belt loops. He glanced from me to the trunk then back again. I met his eyes—and they were bright blue. You know how beauty’s in the eye of the beholder and all? I just don’t think so in this case. Mover Guy was hot. No question. He was my age or maybe a year older, his hair a rich brown, with eyes that were . . . ultramarine. He flashed a lopsided smile.
I stroked my thumbnail over my lower lip. “The heart is the capital of the mind.”
He kept looking right at me as if I’d said hi instead of bursting into poetry like a literary mental patient. “Not biologically,” he said, still smiling.
“Poetically.”
“Figuratively?” I opened my mouth to argue or explain, but he nodded at the car. “You’re not trying to hot-wire this thing, are you? Because first, you’re on the wrong side, and second, I don’t have my wire strippers handy.”
“No. Of course not.” I laughed way too loud. “I live here. This is my . . . haunted mansion. I just need to get some boxes out.”
“Did you try the key?”
“I lost it,” I said. “I left it. It’s gone.”
“It’s lost, left, and gone?” He laughed. “Okay. I can help.”
“Are you a locksmith?”
“No.” He pointed to the logo on his shirt. “I’m a mover, among other things. I’m Kai.” I wondered if he was one of those guys who knew he was hot and used that knowledge to his advantage for discounts at places like Abercrombie & Fitch. But when he held out his hand to shake mine, it was shy and formal. So I shook it.
“I’m Sabine.”
When my sister and I meet people, it’s almost always together, and I’m compelled to say things like: My sister was born seventeen minutes before I was. No, we’ve never pretended to be each other at camp. And yes, we’re identical. Blythe ignores people who ask if we’re identical because it’s painful for her to point out the obvious. But I don’t think anything’s obvious.