“No, Hazel, I don’t know that. I feel that there’s a future in this. In us.”
“Well, you’re wrong. I have no place in your life.” She stormed over and grabbed her son from the couch. Leaving the house, she thought he would say something, but he just watched her walk away. After getting her son in his car seat, she pounded the steering wheel with her fists a few times. He was so aggravating.
Turning the key, she was surprised that the car didn’t start. Calming herself, she tried again—nothing. Quietly, she said sorry for beating on the car, and she tried again, but still nothing. Now what?
Getting out of the car, she thought about looking under the hood but had no idea what it even looked like under there. Circling the little yellow car, she turned to look at Ruston’s house and saw him on the front porch, watching her.
“Car troubles?” he called to her, not leaving the porch.
“I’ll call Mia for a ride. Or Natalie,” she called back to him.
“Or you can just take mine, bring it back tomorrow.” He had finally gotten off the porch and was pulling the passenger door open to get John Henry out of the car.
“I don’t want to come back.”
He grabbed her T-shirt in the front, bunching it in his hand as he pulled her to him with it. “Yes, you do.” Then he kissed her. Not some light peck, but a kiss that said that he didn’t want her to leave. And she didn’t; she wanted to stay kissing him in his yard forever.
With everything she had, she pushed him away and pulled her son from his arms where Ruston was still holding him. “I will take it, but I shouldn’t.”
“I’ll get my keys,” he said but grabbed John Henry’s car seat out of the yellow beetle first. “It’s in the garage, so you’ll have to come through the house.”
Following him silently, she hoped that no one saw the kiss. In the garage, she watched as he put the car seat in the back of his gray SUV, then let him put John Henry in the seat. She loved her little car, always had, but it was a hassle with the two-door car. His car was so big.
He handed her the keys and pulled her into his arms, pulling her close so she could feel his entire body pressed to her. Letting her eyes drift shut, she let herself melt into his one more time. One last time. Feeling his breath on her ear, he whispered, “Stay.”
“I can’t. I told you,” she whispered back, her resolve melting away as his hands roamed her body in the semi-dark garage. She pulled away from him before he could kiss her again.
Closing the door, she started the car and backed out of the garage. The drive home was too short, and soon she was back in the empty house. Turning on every radio she could find, she filled the house with music. She needed music tonight.
With John Henry playing in their bedroom, she grabbed a garbage bag and opened the door to Hanna’s room. The time was now. She had to do it in the next month anyway. Walking into the room, she saw the dust first—it covered everything, the dresser, the floor. Her sister wasn’t coming back here.
After throwing out all the clothes and shoes, she took an open book off the bed. It felt odd closing it after all these years. Should she have put a bookmark in it? No. Nobody needed to know what page it had been on for all these years.
Removing the dusty bedding from the bed, a cloud of dust sent her from the room so it could settle. Back in the room, Hazel started on the books and papers on the desk. As she sat on the chair, John Henry came into the room and sat on her lap. Pulling open drawers, she threw away pens, pencils, and little things that meant nothing to anyone. A pile of hair ties, brochures for colleges she never went to, folders containing papers she had written for school classes, all thrown in the garbage bag.
A pile of pictures caught her attention, and she picked them up. She didn’t remember where the pictures were taken, but it looked like a party somewhere sometime in the summer based on the clothes they were wearing. The top picture was Hanna and Natalie making peace signs at the camera.
John Henry pointed to the picture and said, “Mommy.”
Pulling her son closer, she said, “No honey, that’s Hanna.”
“No, it’s Mommy and Natalie.”
Flipping through the pictures, she found one with her in it. “See, this is mommy. This is Hanna. She looks like me.” She had never realized that her son had never seen a picture of Hanna. Did he even know who her sister was?
Flipping through more of the pictures, she found what she was looking for. “This one is Henry. You were named after him.” Putting that picture beside the one with her and Hanna, she added, “We were three.”
John Henry held up four fingers, and she put one of them down. “Three.”
She hugged the little boy to her as she fought the tears. Her son didn’t even know her siblings. She had somehow thought about them every day but never talked about them. The most important person in her life was unaware of her identical twin and brother, who hung over her family.
When the boy fought his way out of her arms, she let him go, and he took the pile of pictures with him as he left. Turning back to the desk, she pushed through to get it done. Once the desk was empty, she took the posters off the walls and the floor where some had landed through the years.
After filling another bag, she put it in the hallway with the other two she had filled. Turning back to the room, it looked so different now than an hour before. The only thing left was the schoolbook. She would give it to Natalie to give to Sam. She picked it up to take it downstairs so she would remember.
Once back upstairs, she turned to Henry’s room. This one was easier. Once the clothes, shoes, and bedding were gone, she easily cleared his desk. He was not a saver and had thrown a lot of the things that had cluttered Hanna’s desk. There were no pictures or keepsakes for her brother. Removing the knickknacks from on top of the dresser, she stopped. Slowly, she picked up the piece of dusty paper containing her son’s name written in her brother’s handwriting and blew the dust off it, then took it and put it on the book on the dining room table.
Looking at the clock, she realized it was almost midnight. She hadn’t even put John Henry to bed yet. Back upstairs, she went looking for him and found him sleeping in her bed with the pictures scattered around him. He was holding the one of her and Hanna as he slept. Since they were all laid out around him, she picked out the ones with Natalie and her sister or brother and put them in a pile for her friend. The rest she put in another pile. She would put them in an album one day. One day when she was settled into her new life.