I tear open a bag of soil and heft it over the edge of the wood, spilling new dirt into the bed. I dig my hands into the moist soil over and over, letting it filter between my fingers, the rich smell a little bit like coming home. I mix it deeper and deeper into the bed, turning up the bottom soil, combining old and new. The tip of my finger brushes against something smooth and metallic, buried deep. I grasp it and pull a tarnished, muddy silver circle out of the ground.
Astonished, I lay the ring on the flat of my palm, brushing off the dirt.
It’s hers. I remember she thought she’d lost it at the lake last summer. Mine is in my jewelry box, locked away, because it doesn’t mean anything without its match.
I curl my fingers around the ring so tightly, I’m surprised the word stamped into the silver doesn’t carve its way into me the way she did.
20
THREE AND A HALF YEARS AGO (FOURTEEN YEARS OLD)
“Get up.”
I pull the covers over my head. “Leave me alone,” I moan.
I’ve been home from the hospital for a week and I haven’t left my bedroom. I’ve barely left my bed, the walker just another reminder of how much everything sucks. All I do is watch TV and take the cocktail of pain pills the doctors keep giving me, which leaves me so fuzzy, I don’t want to do anything, anyway.
“Get up.” Mina yanks at my blankets, and I can’t fight her with just one hand, my other still in a cast.
“You’re mean,” I tell her, rolling slowly over to my other side, smashing my extra pillow over my head instead. The effort it takes just to roll over makes me groan. Even with the pills, everything hurts, whether I’m still or moving.
Mina plops down on the bed next to me, not bothering to be gentle. Her weight jostles the mattress, making me rock back and forth. I wince. “Stop it.”
“Get out of bed, then,” she says.
“I don’t want to.”
“Too bad. Your mom says you won’t leave your room. And when your mom starts calling me for help, I know there’s a problem. So—up! You reek. You need to shower.”
“No,” I groan, smashing the pillow into my face. I have to use that stupid shower chair for old people with bad hips. Mom’s hovered outside the door each time, basically worrying herself into a fit about whether or not I’ll fall. “Just leave me alone.”
“Yeah, right, that’s really gonna work on me.” Mina rolls her eyes.
I still have the pillow pulled over my head, so I feel, rather than see, her get up off the bed. I hear the sound of water being turned on. For a second I think she’s turned the shower on in the bathroom, but then the pillow I’m holding is yanked out of my hands and, when I open my mouth to protest, Mina dumps a glass of cold water over my head. I shriek, jerking up way too fast, and it hurts, oh shit, it hurts. I’m still not used to how I can’t twist and move my spine like I used to. But I’m so angry at her that I don’t care. I push up on the bed with my good arm, grab the remaining pillow, and hurl it at her.
Mina giggles, delighted, dancing out of the way and then back, tilting the empty glass in her hand teasingly at me.
“Bitch,” I say, yanking my dripping hair out of my eyes.
“You can call me whatever you want, smelly, as long as you shower,” Mina says. “Come on, get up.”
She holds her hand out, and it’s not like anyone else who’s offered themselves to me as a temporary cane. Not like Dad, who wants to carry me everywhere. Not like Mom, who wants to wrap me in cotton and never let me go anywhere again. Not like Trev, who wants so desperately to fix me.
She holds her hand out, and when I don’t take it immediately, she snaps her fingers at me, pushy, impatient.
Just like always.
I fold my hand in hers, and when she smiles, it’s sweet and soft and full of the relief that can only come after a lot of worry.
21
NOW (JUNE)
The Bishop house has pink shutters and white trim, and an apple tree’s been growing tall in the front yard for as long as I can remember. I walk up the porch stairs carefully, the rail taking most of my weight as I balance the box on my hip.
Trev opens the door before I can knock, and for a second I think my plan will fail, that he won’t invite me in.
But then he steps aside, and I walk into the house.
It’s strange to feel unwelcome here. I’ve spent half of my life in this house and know every nook and cranny: where the junk drawer is, where the spare Oreos are stashed, where to find the extra towels.
And all of Mina’s hiding places.
“Are you okay?” Trev’s eyes linger on the way I’m favoring my good leg. “Here.” He takes the box from me and forgets himself for a second, reaching back for my arm.
He remembers at the last moment and stops, snatching his hand away. He rubs it over his mouth, then looks over his shoulder into the living room. “You want to sit?” he asks, the reluctance in his words ringing through the room.
“Actually, can I use your bathroom first?”
“Sure. You know where it is.”
Like I’d expected, his attention’s already fixed on the box of Mina’s things. He disappears into the living room, and I go down the hall. I pause at the bathroom door, opening and closing it for effect, and tiptoe through the kitchen to the only bedroom on the ground floor. Mina had liked it that way. She’d always been restless at night, writing until dawn, baking cookies at midnight, throwing rocks at my window at three A.M., luring me out for mini road trips to the lake.
Her door’s closed, and I hesitate, worried about the sound. But it’s my only chance, so I grab the knob and slowly turn it. The door opens and I slip inside.
When I thought up this plan, I worried that I might make it all the way here, only to find all her things boxed up or gone already.
But it’s worse: everything is the same. From the lavender walls to that girly canopy bed she’d begged for when she was twelve. Her cleats are next to her desk, stacked haphazardly across each other, as if she’s just toed them off.
The room hasn’t been touched. Mina’s bed’s still unmade, I realize with a horrible swoop of my stomach. I stare at the rumpled sheets, the indentation in the pillow, and I have to stop myself from pressing my hand into where her head had rested, trailing my fingers through sheets frozen in the curled shape of her last peaceful night.
I have to hurry. I drop to the floor and crawl on my stomach under the bed, my fingers scrabbling for the loose floorboard. My nails catch at the wood and I lift it up and away, pulling myself farther beneath the steel framework.
My fingers search below the floor, past some cobwebs, but I don’t feel anything hidden in the nook. I dig my phone out of my pocket and shine it down into the space under the floorboards.
There’s an envelope tucked in the corner underneath the loose board, way in the back. I reach down in the gap of space to grab it, crumpling the paper in my hurry. I’m putting the floorboard back when I hear Trev call my name from the hallway.
Shit. I snap the board into place and push myself out from underneath the bed. I have to bite hard down on my lip when my leg twists the wrong way getting up and pain stabs down my knee. I want to lean against the bed for a second, deal with the pain, but I don’t have the time. Breathing fast, I shove the envelope in my bag without opening it.
“Soph? You okay?” Trev’s knocking on the bathroom door.
I duck out of Mina’s room, closing the door quietly behind me before hobbling into the kitchen and grabbing a glass from the cupboard.
Footsteps. I glance up at him as I turn the faucet on and fill up the glass. I swig the water, trying not to look suspicious. “Water’s supposed to help with the muscle cramps,” I explain, rinsing out my glass and putting it in the sink.