Shaun’s Challenger was still parked in the driveway, and she half expected to see him in the driver’s seat, grinning. Hey girl, where you been?
She put her hand to the glass, peering into the car. When Shaun was alive, it had been as messy as his bedroom was, schoolwork, skateboards, old crumpled-up clothes piled in the cramped back seat. He’d patched the cracked upholstery with duct tape, and it had peeled up in places, sticky, black and filthy.
Now it was spotless. The upholstery was still ruined, but the garbage was all gone, the carpets vacuumed clean. Did Nan do this? she wondered. And then she saw the For Sale sign stuck in the window. Call Sherrie, it said. His mom. Of course.
Even though it made perfect sense—there was no way Nan would ever drive this thing—it still felt like a punch in the gut. As rusted out and used up and broken as it was, this ridiculous lime-green car was Shaun’s spirit animal. His pride. How could she think of selling it?
Evie looked at the house again. They’d all avoided Shaun’s place for weeks. His best friend hadn’t even been brave enough to drive past. And it was easy to avoid—planted at the tail end of a long, bumpy road, past empty fields and factories and train tracks stretching away. A forgotten place, tucked under the rug at the empty edge of town with a bunch of other houses just like it.
Evie climbed the front steps and pulled open the rusty screen door.
She was surprised to hear a crowd of voices shouting and laughing inside, canned music playing in the background. She looked back at the green car gleaming in the sun. It was the only one in the drive. Whoever was inside must have walked over, like she had. Maybe the neighbors were here?
She rang the bell and waited.
As the door swung open, Evie was hit with the familiar smell of this house—wilted gardenias and cough medicine. Shaun’s nan stood before her, looking smaller than ever, translucent white skin hanging slack from her little round face. Her watery eyes fixed on Evie.
Evie smiled. “Hello, Nan. Do you remember me?”
Nan’s eyes worked, and Evie could see her trying to answer the question, but in the end she only smiled.
Evie said gently, “I was a friend of your grandson’s.” Still no recognition. Evie wondered if Nan could even hear her, deaf as she was. Almost shouting, she said, “I knew Shaun!”
And then Nan’s whole face lit up. “Oh!” she gasped. “Yes, I remember. Please, come in.” Her bony fingers closed around Evie’s arm, and the tiny woman pulled her through the doorway, into the house.
It was dim inside, after the bright sun, and Evie’s eyes took a moment to adjust.
When they did, her heart fell.
The front room was a disaster. A chair was knocked over, pictures had fallen off the wall, dirt from a potted plant was spread across the carpet. Someone, probably Nan herself, had walked through it, trailing footprints back and forth to the front window. Evie thought of Ré, his two black eyes. Him and Shaun grabbing and clawing through this room like animals. That fight had been weeks ago—had no one cleaned this room since then?
A stab of guilt twisted through her. They’d spent so many nights here, partying in this front room while Nan slept upstairs, deaf to it all. They had completely taken advantage of this house. And then they’d all just walked away. Including Sherrie—Evie guessed the only reason she’d bothered to clean Shaun’s car was because it was worth something.
Nan shuffled down a short hallway to the kitchen, and Evie stepped along behind her. On the kitchen counter, a radio blared some kind of religious show at ear-splitting volume—the crowd of voices she’d heard from outside. Nan was very much alone.
Evie looked around the faded kitchen as if for the first time. Stacks of plates and cups and bowls had all been taken from the cupboards and placed on the counter, on top of the microwave, even on chairs. There were half drunk cups of tea everywhere, their surfaces going hairy. Boxes of paper spilled onto the floor.
It was like Shaun’s disaster of a bedroom had infected the rest of the house, and now the whole thing was sick with mess.
A scorch mark ringed the burner on the stove, and a soot-black kettle perched there. Evie remembered Shaun telling her how much he worried about Nan, how she wasn’t safe alone. He’d missed so much school to take care of her that he wouldn’t have even graduated this year. It made her sick to think of Nan here without him.
“Nan,” Evie said over the radio’s blare, “does anyone come to see you? Does Shaun’s mom ever come here?”
But Nan didn’t answer. She was doddering at the counter, making small noises to herself, and Evie began to wonder if she’d forgotten that Evie was there.
“Nan,” she tried again, going to the old woman’s side. Nan turned a sweet smile on her, but said nothing. She was busy stacking envelopes and junk mail, weeks-old flyers, making it all orderly amid the mess. “Does your daughter ever come here?” Evie tried again.
“Oh, do you know Sherrie?” Nan asked, sounding pleased. “She’s all grown up now. She had a baby, you know.” For a second, Evie thought Nan meant another baby, that Shaun had a sibling, but then she realized Nan was just talking about Shaun.
Nan tutted to herself, shaking her head and clacking the edge of the papers on the counter. “It was hard for her, being so young. She moved away a long time ago, I think.” The look on Nan’s face told Evie that she was trying to put together a puzzle, but for whatever reason, the pieces wouldn’t stick.
“When was the last time you saw her?” Evie
