My eyes scan the scene, the same but different. I’ve come to know the players, the reporters the same ones who have been with Eleanor and her family all along. They are the bridge between the brokenhearted and the aloof. Me? I’m purgatory. I have no idea what to do, where to go, how to help. I get out of the Bronco because I have to, but from there, I shuffle forward, almost aimlessly, until I hear my grandfather call my name.
I find him in the driveway, standing next to Mom’s car.
“Where’s Mom?” I ask, as if that’s the information I need. I don’t want to know the other part. It’s inevitable, but it doesn’t mean I can’t postpone it.
“She went over to help. She’s trying to give them space. Damn media showed up a minute after they found out,” he says. His eyes drift from the chaos to me, and they are filled with apology.
I suck in a hard breath when the tears hit my eyes, a burning sting forcing them down my cheeks without warning. I wipe them away only to make room for new ones.
“They found her body.” It isn’t a question, and he confirms the statement with a nod.
“I have to go . . . go help or something,” I stammer, moving away from him on newly unsteady legs.
I amble across the street, ignoring prompts from reporters begging for answers and a peek behind the curtain. I act as though they’re ghosts, passing right through them on my way to the Trombley front door. I work the handle, expecting it to be locked, but when it isn’t I step inside and lock it behind me.
Morgan rushes from the living room, ready to fight an intruder, but when she sees it’s me, she throws her arms around my neck and bawls into my shoulder, wailing muffled cries as I hold her up and keep her from dropping to the floor.
“I knew this was coming,” she says. She whispers these same words over and over as we stand by the front door for what feels like an hour. I don’t make it inside to see Eleanor until all of the reporters have gone and I’ve helped Morgan appease them with some sort of statement, not that there is anything one can say when they find out that their youngest, most fragile family member was found buried in a heap of snow in a deep ravine next to the body of the deranged woman who stole her.
They’d been there for at least a week. Police found the car first and figured they must have gotten out to walk so they expanded their search. Their bodies were down a ravine a mile away from the woman’s crashed car at the side of the road. It’s not clear whether they fell first and then snow covered them, or if it was snowing all along when it happened. But it was the impact from the severe fall, not the cold, that ended their lives.
My mom is working in their kitchen as Morgan and I lock up for the final time, and she hands us a cup of coffee. We both refuse, and I point up the stairs where I assume Eleanor is hiding.
“They all went up a few minutes ago. The police sent an advocate to help with the process. Shit,” my mom hisses, setting both coffee mugs back on the counter and letting go of the tears she’s clearly been holding back.
“Thank you,” Morgan says, stepping into my mom and embracing her.
I leave them with each other and hesitantly climb the stairs. I don’t know if I’ll make things better, but I can’t fathom leaving Eleanor alone. Not after this. Her day was an enormous wave, the ride joyous and heartrending all within the span of hours. This will change her, more than she already has been. It can’t be helped. I would know, yet I can’t possibly know.
“Hey.” I speak quietly along with a gentle knock on her barely open door.
She is drained of life, her body flat on her bed, one leg hanging off, and her wet, red face contorted where it lays along the back of her hand.
I look down at the line of her threshold. Wood floors from the hallway become carpet in her room, and I don’t know whether I should cross that border.
“Stay,” she croaks out. It’s barely audible, but when I look up to find her outstretched hand reaching for me—needing me—I have my answer.
“Of course,” I say, stepping inside her world and closing the door to keep the rest out.
Twenty-One
Addy’s services are today. It’s been more than a week since the Trombleys got the worst and only closure they’re probably going to get.
I don’t own the right kind of clothes for something like this, so Jake brought over a few of his things and I’ve been trying on combinations that fit and don’t make me look like a boy playing dress-up. The best I’ve got so far is the black dress pants, gray shirt and one of my grandfather’s ties. I don’t know how to tie one, though, so I’m thinking of abandoning that part.
I turn at the knock on my door and meet my grandpa’s soothing face as I drop the ends of his tie in frustration.
“Come here. I got it,” he says, curling his fingers to call me close.
We square our shoulders with one another as he tugs free the mess I made and re-tucks the tie under the collar of my shirt.
“The trick is to make the short side shorter than you think you should.”
His glasses are balanced on the tip of his nose while he concentrates on his work. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how lucky I am to have him. I guess I’ve also been thinking about how old he is, and death.
Loss.
In a few quick motions, he forms a perfect knot that he slides up to
