“Okay.” Emma sat back down.
Jamie spent the next hour finishing unloading the car and putting their things in their respective bedrooms. Emma, looking better after Harley’s corrections—Jamie had to admit the cut was not too bad—was still ensconced in her old room, and Harley had pounced on Jamie’s one-time room next to it. Jamie found herself placing her belongings in her mother’s room, though she made up the fold-out couch in the tiny office-cum-storage closet-cum-guest room next to Emma’s. She could dress in Mom’s bedroom, but she couldn’t sleep in her bed just yet. Maybe never. It seemed sacrilegious in an indefinable way. It was Mom’s bed. No one else’s. She’d bought it new when Dad lammed out. Jamie would figure out what to do over time.
In the back of her head, she was seeing this move home as temporary. Maybe she and Harley would stick around the Portland area. Maybe not. Being in the house she grew up in felt like going backward. She didn’t want it. Didn’t even know if there was enough money to keep it. If she and Harley did stay in the area, they would need to find their own place.
But what about Emma?
An inner part of Jamie was already rebelling. Emma was capable of taking care of herself on a day-to-day basis, at least domestically. She could dress herself, take a shower, brush her teeth, even put on makeup, pretty much the full-on toilette of anyone else her age. But she had difficulty in so many other areas. Socially, for sure, but also the comment their mother had made about her inability with scissors. She’d never been able to cook because she struggled with processes. She was forgetful, yet sometimes frighteningly insightful. There was no accounting for what she was thinking at any given time.
Traitorously, Jamie wondered if Dad would be willing to take care of Emma. At least some of the time. And maybe there could be a helper, an aide of some kind.
She’s your responsibility.
Jamie looked at her mother’s clothes, hanging in the closet. She was going to have to gather them up and donate them. She was going to have to do a lot of donating and cleaning up . . . and organizing . . . and figuring out what to do.
Chapter Four
Jamie went downstairs to find Emma watching a cooking show and Harley checking out YouTube on the laptop she and Jamie shared.
“What’s that?” Jamie asked Harley softly, nodding her head toward the television. Emma was seated on the couch directly in front of it, rapt.
“Emma’s favorite show. They’re making risotto. She watches it every day, along with a whole bunch of other episodes on the DVR.”
“Did you set it up for her?” They were both whispering.
“Uh-uh. She’s good at it. She told me not to DVR anything because it takes up her space. She said Grandma was terrible at it.”
“My mom thought TV was a brain drain. She never watched anything but the news.”
Harley made a disgruntled sound. “She was wrong.”
“Yeah, well . . .”
Into the pause that followed, Harley said, “Should we tell her that Grandma contacted us?”
“She didn’t contact us,” Jamie denied.
Harley didn’t say anything, just looked at her, silently calling her a liar.
Jamie turned away and opened the refrigerator door. “Looks like we’re going to have to go out to dinner.”
“I already ate,” said Emma, never turning from the television set.
Had she heard them? Jamie wasn’t sure. “Harley and I need to get something. Is Deno’s Pizzeria still at the end of the street?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Can you stay here alone while we go eat . . . ?”
“Uh-huh. But I want to go with you.”
“Oh, okay.”
They all found their coats and climbed in the Camry with Emma in the back seat. “It’s safer,” Emma told them, which tickled Harley, who claimed shotgun with no qualms about usurping her aunt’s position.
* * *
Friday morning dawned dark and gray, and before Jamie could get to the school, huge raindrops fell, turning into a rattling storm of hail.
“Whoa,” Emma said from the back seat, staring out at the white balls of hail bouncing on the rain-drenched street all around them.
Harley said, “Holy hell.”
Jamie and Emma said together, “Don’t swear,” and Emma added, “Mom said it costs a quarter every time you swear.”
“My mom’d be broke if we lived here,” said Harley. “She swears all the time.”
“That’s not true,” Jamie said, but thought, Okay, maybe it is. But she’d starve for a month rather than admit it. “We won’t be long,” she added as they pulled into one of the few spots and waited while hail continued to pelt them.
“Mom should be in the garden. She would like this,” said Emma, peering through the fogged windows.
“You mean her ashes,” Jamie said carefully.
“‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust . . .’” Emma quoted flatly. “She should be in the garden.”
“I was thinking about a memorial service, small,” Jamie said. “A few people over to the house and then we could spread Mom’s ashes.”
“I am not doing that.” Harley slid a glance into the back seat to Emma, who was still trying to peer past the steamy window.
“She will haunt you,” said Emma, which drew a gasp from Harley.
“Grandma liked me. Loved me,” she shot back. “She would never do anything to hurt me!”
“Now, wait, let’s keep it real. She’s not going to—” Jamie began.
“She wants you to be with her when she’s put to rest.” Emma was adamant. “In the garden.”
“We’ll spread her ashes this afternoon,” Jamie said quickly. “After Harley’s back from school and you’re home from the Thrift Shop. We’ll have people over later.” Harley said nothing, just stared through the windshield. Emma looked perturbed, her expression darkening. “Mom wants to be in the garden,” Jamie riffed. “I get that. We want her to be happy. We’ll make sure she’s happy today, okay? Okay, Emma?”
“Harley needs to be there, too,” she said stubbornly.
At the school Jamie slid a look toward her daughter, whose face was tight and
