He sniffed the ground and whined and backed away from it.
Like there was nothing there he recognized.
Then he grabbed my sleeve in his teeth.
And pulled.
Toward the car.
Toward home.
Toward the tree line behind our house.
“Stop it,” I snapped.
I yanked my arm away so hard he yelped.
I’d never snapped at him before.
He sat down and looked at me.
Then at the dirt.
Then back at me.
I thought he was grieving too.
Meredith came by every other day.
Casseroles.
Soup.
A bag of oranges.
She never stayed.
She never sat down.
She never once looked me in the eye.
I told myself it was guilt.
Doctors hate losing kids.
Especially their own family.
And then there were the texts.
They came from a number I had blocked three times.
He kept getting new ones.
“I’m so sorry about our girl.”
“I keep thinking about her.”
“Can I see you?”
“Just once.”
“Please, Hannah.”
I deleted them.
Every single one.
I never told Jason about those texts.
There were a lot of things I’d never told Jason.
Some nights I woke up at three in the morning.
I’d go to the window.
Across the street, under the broken streetlight, a pair of headlights would be on.
Just sitting there.
Then they’d switch off.
And I’d go back to bed.
Grief makes you see things.
That’s what I told myself.
On the eleventh night, I finally made myself step inside Ruby’s room.
Just one step.
Just to the desk.
I wanted to touch her brushes.
They were gone.
Not the cheap ones in the cloudy jar.
The good ones.
The sable brushes Jason bought her for her ninth birthday.
The ones she wasn’t allowed to leave in water.
Her watercolor tin was gone too.
And her favorite sketchbook.
The one with the fox on the cover.
I stood there staring at the empty spot on the desk.
Maybe Walt put them in the box with her, I thought.
Maybe Jason asked him to.
That would be like Jason.
I didn’t ask.
I was afraid of the answer.
