"Boys," my mother called from the kitchen window. "Did you leave this mess here for me to clean up, or were you planning on coming back and doing it yourselves?"
"We'll do it, Mother!" I yelled. "We were just really hungry."
"That's what I thought," she called. "I knew you didn't want your father to come home and discover your carelessness."
Lincoln and I looked at each other wide eyed as we quickly grabbed our dishes and headed inside to clean up the mess we'd made. By the time we were done, the painters had finished with our room and were cleaning up.
We surveyed the job in a state of awe as we looked at our plans for decorating the room. It was overwhelming to think that our vision of the room was about to become a reality. Lincoln stuck his hand out and touched the wall. When he drew it back, there was a print on the wall the size of his hand and his palm was covered in dark-blue paint.
With fear in my eyes, I looked at my brother who shrugged and stuffed his hand in his pocket.
"Dad's gonna kill you if he sees this," I whispered.
"Then we need to figure out a way that he doesn't see it, don't we?" Lincoln said in a way that struck me as oddly defiant. Up until then, we'd been partners in punishment, but Lincoln seemed to be rejecting that narrative. It seemed risky to me but, since he was the older wiser brother, I followed his lead and helped him plan how to hide the handprint.
Our plan had ultimately worked, and no one had been the wiser. However, Lincoln's pants had suffered the consequence of him shoving a handful of wet paint into the pocket, so he'd buried them in the bottom of his dresser drawer. We never spoke about it again.
Now, 20 years later, I opened my eyes and looked over at the wall where Lincoln's handprint had been and wondered how many layers of paint it had taken to cover the memories in this room—and how long it would take for me to leave the memories behind.
Chapter Eight
Leah
After the wake, I headed over to the office to take care of a few orders that were pending in our warehouse. I knew I didn't have to work. But I also knew that, death or not, customers were still waiting for their orders. Our ability to survive the loss of our leader was dependent on the rest of us doing our jobs. I waved to a few of the warehouse workers and handed over the orders that were waiting to be filled.
"Get this out as soon as you can, okay?" I said to the shift manager. "I know they know about Mr. Yates, but let's keep the orders rolling out as close to schedule as possible."
"Will do, boss!" Burt nodded as he took the paperwork and surveyed the order. "How was the end of the wake?"
"The usual: lots of crying and mourning and gossip," I said.
"That's how it always is, isn't it?" John said. "The rich go out rich, and the poor get tossed in a pauper's grave."
"I don't know about that," I said shaking my head. "I mean, Mr. Yates came from nothing and worked his way up, you know."
"Sure, but he had all the money in the world to go out on," Burt said as he checked off boxes on the order, making sure he had everything in the warehouse. "His family is going to be just fine, but what about the rest of us? Who's going to lead the company now? Are we going to lose our jobs when the new guy comes in and decides that what we've been doing no longer works?"
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, shall we?" I said, trying to stem the concern I heard in his voice. "I'm sure Mr. Yates had a good plan in place in case something like this happened. Let's give it a few weeks before we start to panic."
"I'm just saying that I've seen it before, and it doesn't end well for those of us on this end of the equation," Burt warned.
"I promise I'll let you know what's going on as soon as I hear something," I said, turning to go back to my office. I couldn't show it, but I was worried too.
I'd started working at Baby Steps in high scho
ol, and over the past decade I had worked my way up to warehouse manager. Mr. Yates had been a mentor and a father figure to me as I'd made my way through the ranks. I was now making a good living managing the warehouse. But I wondered how that would all change if a new CEO came in and took over.
I said goodbye to the warehouse staff and headed home to make dinner for Riley. When I got to the house, I found Mama asleep at the kitchen table with a half-empty bottle in front of her and a lit cigarette in the ashtray. This was getting dangerous, and I needed to do something about it.
"Riley!" I called up the stairs. "Are you home? What do you want for dinner?"
"Up here, Leah!" Riley called down. "Pizza!"
I grabbed the phone and dialed the pizza place around the corner and ordered a large to be delivered. Then I shook my mother awake and helped her to her bedroom.
"Mama, you have to get help," I whispered as I tucked the blankets in around her. "You can't go on like this."
"I'm fine, girl," my mother slurred. "The last thing I need is you nagging me about something you know nothing about."