“I did, but…” Felix hesitates, a slight hitch in his voice. “There’s been a development.”
I incline my head to the side and study him. His Adam’s apple bobs nervously. It’s not like Felix to look so anxious.
“What is it?” I ask. I didn’t think the pit in my stomach could get bigger. I was wrong.
“Your things have already been packed up and moved to storage.” He shakes his head. “I tried to reach you as it was happening, but you weren’t answering your phone. After Sterling came here looking for you, Malcolm had the staff do it. By the time your message reached me, it was done. I should have told you, but I worried you might not come back to the house.”
“Are you serious?” I race up the stairs toward my rooms. I sure as hell wouldn’t have come back to this house, not if I’d known my brother tried to entirely erased me from it. I’m breathless by the time I reach my bedroom. There’s a handful of boxes, covered with a tarp, and a fresh coat of white paint on the walls. My feet won’t move. I’m stuck in the doorway, staring at what my life to this point has been reduced to: an empty room and white walls.
I’m still there when Felix reaches me. He puts an arm around my shoulder.
“I wonder which box my underwear is in,” I say dumbly. He squeezes me closer to him.
“The girls marked everything. I’ll find it,” he promises.
How could my brother do this? I’d given up everything for this family—for him and Ginny and Ellie. I’d put up with our father. I’d done everything asked of me. And the first time I took a step outside the boundaries they had given me, I’d been packed up and relegated to storage. I lurch forward, crossing to the tarp and tug it free. There’s three boxes under it, all marked: garbage. Ripping off the packing tape, I open the first box to discover stacks and stacks of battered notebooks. Stomach acid burns my throat. I don’t know what’s more sickening: that he nearly threw away my old journals or that he likely read them. I open the other two and find books and photos, even a framed picture of me with mom a few months before she died.
“What did they pack?” My voice startles me. It sounds a million miles away. I turn to Felix, holding my memories in my hands.
“They said everything.” He stares at the photographs and notebooks in horror. “If I had known…”
“I know,” I stop him. There’s no way Felix would have allowed them to toss my past aside like this if they had consulted him. I doubt any of the other household staff would, either. That can only mean one thing. “He ordered them to do it. He told them to throw this away.”
Somewhere in storage, I’ll find boxes of clothing and shoes. Things I need, but things I can replace. What Malcolm nearly took from me was priceless, and he knows it.
“Why does he hate me?” I ask Felix in a soft voice. “What did I ever do?”
“You had the courage to leave.” Felix places his hands on my shoulders and turns me to face him. “Courage he has never had. His whole life has been following in your father’s footsteps. Even now, he’s still doing it. But you? You walked away from all of this. You struck out on your own.”
“That’s not the only reason.” I dare a look at Felix. “We both know it’s about who isn’t here any more. But how could they hate me for that?.”
“Love is a tough concept for your family.”
“It’s a hard concept for me, too.” My thoughts wander to Sterling. I know what love feels like, because not a day has gone by in the last five years where I haven’t thought of him and felt it. The trouble is, like my family, I never understood what to do with those feelings.
“The trick is to find someone worth loving,” Felix tells me. “Find someone that challenges you. Find someone that makes you a better version of yourself. Someone you want to come home to and tell about your day. Someone you can talk to about everything.”
Emotion swells my throat, preventing me from speaking, and Felix sighs.
“I suppose I have no business giving anyone else relationship advice,” he admits.
“I’m no expert, but that seemed like decent advice. Maybe you should call Maria,” I say meaningfully.
Felix’s eyes droop at the mention of his ex-paramour, a schoolteacher at Beautiful Valley Elementary. They’d been on and off again for years, but he hadn’t spoken of her in months. “I’m afraid that ship sailed—off to Memphis.”
“What?”
“I waited too long,” he says. “She wanted a family, and I wasn’t ready.”
He’s lying, and I know it. Felix might have left, moved on with his life, married Maria, and lived happily ever after. Instead, he’d stuck around to see me through my mother’s death. Then Sterling left, and I went to London. “You gave your notice before I moved to England. Why didn’t you leave then?”
“Your father asked me to stay on a little while longer while he looked for a replacement. It was a reasonable request,” Felix says, “and Maria had no problem with it—until I changed my mind about leaving.”
“But why did you change your mind?” Why didn’t he leave? Why didn’t he escape? He gave up the happy ending he might have had with Maria for years of suffering abuse at my father’s hands.
“You know why,” he whispers. “I couldn’t bear making you come back here alone to face your family.” He’s never admitted to me what we both
