Creeping into the room, I forget the threat of repercussions from Shane’s anger and my fears over my parents, and rip open a sack. Ties and shirts fall over the soft carpet that hasn’t frayed with time. Hasn’t been ruined by the harsh feet of intruders.
The lemon tie is soft between my fingers. I can almost smell Dad’s musky cologne as I inhale it.
“Fine. Keep that one.”
The yellow tie flies through the air as Shane snatches it from my hands. It lands on the bed, set out on Dad’s pillow like a tie would be each morning as he got ready.
Tears continue to burn my eyes, and the emotion they travel with plays hell with my rattling chest. “I want to keep everything. I am keeping everything.”
“It’s just a load of damp old junk, though, Lancie.”
“Not to me, and this conversation is done.” I sit by the sacks, knees pressing into the soft carpet. My joints still hurt as I remove one item at a time from another sack.
The books Mom and Dad wrote about the grief of losing their children and feeling guilty come out next, and I tremble, seeing Ambrose and me on the cover, enjoying different Christmas gifts in the months before our lives changed forever. Their plan was probably in place when they snapped this candid shot.
“I mean, seriously, Dollie, if you’d just let me clean this place out, we could stay in this room. It’s huge.”
“Shane, have you not been hearing me?” I look away from Dad’s thing between my moving fingers to Shane. “You just told me my brother was dead to see if I’d cry. This isn’t working.”
“It could, though, couldn’t it? If you just put in a little effort with me and less with him.” He squats at my side, his calloused hand scraping along my thigh, never making it to the hem of my hoodie. He settles one on my knee, his grip tightening. “Is this the one that hurts him? Why he has that fucked up limp?” He smiles, all teeth.
Shifting away from him, I take his threat seriously.
“So, about this room?—”
“It’s not my room. I don’t want to stay in here. Just leave everything, and I’ll take care of it tomorrow.” I fold a shirt of Dad’s and place it to my side.
“You won’t, though, because you won’t part with anything.”
“Please, Shane. Let this drop.”
A dark shadow looms in the doorway, and I pivot, finding Ambrose’s dark clothes shielding me from the brighter hallway lights.
Even silent, his presence is enough to get Shane backing away from me.
“Sure,” Shane turns back to me, a false smile lifting his lips and squinting his eyes. The narrowed gaze lingers on me a second too long. “We can leave it. I was just trying to help.”
“Why are you crying, Dollie? What’s going on?” Ambrose’s green eyes burn with rage, his stare locks on Shane, who drifts away from the sacks.
“You talk now?” Shane careens back to Ambrose. “How did that happen?”
“None of your fucking business.” Ambrose’s voice is colder than I’ve ever heard. He has no interest in telling Shane that, physically, he could always talk. His only interest is getting him out of this room. “What are you doing in here?”
“I just thought your sister might want to get rid of some of this junk.”
“Junk?” One of Ambrose’s eyebrows disappears beyond his greenish-blue—dark brown—hair as he steps inside the room and leans back, a clean sock against the wall as he kicks up his leg. “These are the only things we have left of our parents.”
“God, what—have you guys been spending that much time together? I mean, did you even like your parents?”
“They were my parents.”
“Yeah but given what happened.” Shane sticks an invisible knife into my chest.
“Stop making insinuations, Shane, or you’ll be joining them.” Ambrose shakes the tension from his body.
“You just sound so much alike.”
Ambrose approaches, his shadow looming over Shane, who steps back to get out of it. “Have you ever thought that maybe we just share the same feelings?”
