I narrow my eyes. “I didn’t say that—”
“Boy, you look just like the both of them. Don’t you think you’re fooling anyone.”
I smile a little helplessly at that.
“You gonna do right by her?”
“I think so.”
“There you go,” she says, as if it’s that easy. “It’s hot out today. I need to get back to my flowers before I melt. If you want to leave the keys with me when you’re done, we have the same landlord. I can make sure he gets them. And take care of that little girl, you hear me? She’s a good one. Not saying that her mom wasn’t, but she needs more than that woman was ever able to give.”
And then she turns around and starts pulling weeds again.
THE HOUSE is hot and smells of stale smoke. It’s dark inside, the shades having been pulled shut across the windows, the white plastic slats hanging still in the thick air.
There’s a bookshelf off to the right, next to what looks like an entryway to the kitchen. There are photos, so many photos, all of them of Izzie. Every single one. Most of them she’s alone, and she’s a princess or she’s a pirate or she’s climbing onto a bus or she’s sitting with Santa, little red ribbons in her hair.
And then she’s with Julie, our mother, and she’s old. She’s fucking old. It’s been years since I’ve seen her—that day she’d come to the hospital, tired and worn, Mrs. Paquinn dying and Otter recovering, though we didn’t know it yet, a folder in her lap—and ah god, she just aged. And it’s here, now, that I remember the last conversation I ever had with her, when she had tried to explain herself, tried to tell me why she’d done the things she’d done, why she was here, now, relinquishing custody of Tyson to me, saying she wouldn’t fight, she wouldn’t push, agreeing to just disappear forever and ever and I would never have to see her again. None of us would.
And all of the things I’d said to her, all the terrible, terrible things.
It’s taking all I have to not reach over and put my hands around your neck and squeeze the ever-fucking life out of you.
See how long you hold on to your daughter when I’m done with you.
You are nothing to us.
I have better things to be doing than talking to a cunt like you.
You didn’t win because we
don’t belong to you. You didn’t win because you have no part in who we are. Our family made us. MY brothers made me who I am. They may not all be blood, but it doesn’t matter. They’re mine. And you will never take them away from me.
Don’t come back here. Maybe Ty will want to find you one day. That’s his choice. Maybe our sister will want to know us, if you tell her about us. That’s her choice. But don’t you come back here. You’ve done enough.
I regretted it. After she’d gone. After I’d had time to breathe when Mrs. P passed away and Otter opened his eyes.
But if I had to do it all over again, I can’t say I wouldn’t say the same exact things.
It was cathartic. I think I can appreciate that now, all these years later.
I WON’T go into her room.
I refuse.
MOST OF this will go to Goodwill. The truck is supposed to be here tomorrow morning. We don’t need anything of hers.
Except for the photos.
Those are Izzie’s now. And if she wants to keep them, she can.
If she wants to throw them away, she can do that too.
They don’t belong to me.
I’M IN Izzie’s room, marveling at how it resembles Tyson’s as a kid, when I hear Otter say my name as he opens the front door.
“Back here,” I call out to him, digging through the closet, piling clothes and shoes on the bed. Most of it looks like it’d be too small for her now, and my heart hurts at the thought. I’m already making plans to get her whatever she wants. I’ve already pulled her posters off the wall, rolled them up carefully, and stacked them next to the books on the floor that we’re taking with us.