Perfectly Inappropriate

It didn’t help that Brooks and I spent all of yesterday packing up the house where Lucy and I lived together. I thought her parents had taken most of her belongings—the ones I hadn’t held on to and hidden away—but as I filled boxes, I kept finding her stuff. A sock of hers clinging to the guest towels. A binder she’d assembled with pages she’d ripped out of magazines and catalogs—recipes, photos of rooms she liked—

So many fucking things she never got around to.

If I’ve learned anything in the last two years, it’s how to put one foot in front of the other. That’s what I did yesterday, and that’s what I do now. “Chase is right. Let’s get this fucker done.”

Of course, Jonah chooses that moment to exit Chase’s car and come running up to us. “Dad,” he chastises.

“Sorry. Let’s get this thing done.”

Doesn’t have the same impact.

Jonah pauses, and I watch, wincing, as he takes in the house, no doubt comparing it to our old house, which, while smaller, was in great shape. “Dad,” he whines.

“Don’t start, Jo.”

“It’s a dump.”

Brooks puts his arm around Jonah. “It has a lot of promise.”

Chase snorts quietly.

“We’re going to fix it up until you won’t recognize it, bud. You and me,” I tell him, looking down at his pale, sullen face, framed with a fall of straight black hair. He has Lucy’s eyes, bright blue, and my chest aches.

“Why do we have to move?”

“You know why, bud. Remember, I explained? It was time for Nonna and Pops to move back to Florida”—my parents had come to stay long-term after Lucy’s death, to help us out—“and that catalog, The Reclaimed House, wants my furniture, and so we needed to be closer to Gram and Gramps so they can watch you while I build. We’ll have enough money by the end of this year to buy an even nicer house than our old one, near Gram and Gramps. And I’ll let you help pick it.”

“I know, but…” Jonah wrings his hands, a habit he started after Lucy died. It’s painful to watch. I touch my fingers to his and he stops.

If Luce were here, she’d know how to get him to break the habit.

Of course, if Luce were here, he wouldn’t do it.

“Come on, Champ,” Brooks tells Jonah. “Let’s find the boxes that go in your room and we’ll get you set up.”

For what it’s worth, that’s typical Brooks, too. No one worked harder in the weeks before and after Lucy’s death to try to make things easier for Jonah.

Over the next couple of hours, there’s not much conversation as Brooks, Chase, and I unload the truck, stack boxes, and do our best to arrange furniture. Brooks, true to his word, spends most of the time helping Jonah unpack. After a while, Jonah loses interest and begins exploring the backyard, and then making forays along the sidewalk to check out the rest of the neighborhood, which is a lot nicer than the house we’re living in. I’m pretty sure the people who lived here the last three years didn’t do any upkeep at all.

“Stay where I can call you,” I caution him.

Brooks holds my phone out to me. I’d left it on the kitchen counter. “Text from Mom.”

I take it warily.

Did you make the beds first thing?

My mother is very opinionated about moving.

Not yet, Mom.

Go do it before you and Jonah get tired. Trust me.

I roll my eyes at Brooks, who rolls his back, and head upstairs to take my mother’s probably very sage advice. She has been more motherly toward me in the two years since Lucy’s death, having laid off somewhat during Lucy’s reign as queen of the household. Most of the time I appreciate it, because most of the time she’s right, but it can also make me feel like I’m ten years old.

The box with the sheets also contains the contents of my nightstand drawers and all the stuff I swept off the surface during my rushed packing job. Once the two beds are made, I shove as much of the other crap as will fit into the drawers, then stack the rest on the surface of the nightstand. I don’t do a very good job, though, and the whole thing rushes to the floor in a landslide—Clive Cussler, John le Carré, Lee Child, a few self-help books well-meaning people have tortured me with, and the spiral notebook where I keep my Lucy journal. The Lucy journal—basically, a daily letter to Lucy since her death—was the brainchild of the counselor at my grief group. It won’t bring them back, she cautioned. But it will help with the pain.

I scoffed at the idea. I might even have made a scornful noise out loud. Anyone who knows me knows I’m not a journal guy, not a feelings guy, not a pour-it-all-out guy. But the idea must have stuck somewhere in the back of my mind, and one particularly bad night, I tried it. And, well, it kind of worked. It wasn’t like she was right there in the room, but “talkin