Page 28 of Ladybirds

Everything that made it home is packed up in boxes; some of it for donation (Oma’s clothes, some of the furniture, the majority of the kitchen supplies). A lot of it isn’t. As she watches Miles load up the dollhouse into the truck, she feels another pang of guilt over how much she’s keeping. There’s no way she’ll be able to fit everything in her tiny apartment.

Jen links their arms, leaning her dark head on Sara’s shoulder. “It doesn’t feel the same, does it?” Somehow, she always knows exactly what’s going through Sara’s mind.

“No. It feels…” she trails off. Hollow? Lifeless? Both words fit in ways that make her heart ache, but neither encompass the full scope of it. It’s like someone developed the film wrong and everywhere she looks, it’s nothing but shadows and static. Sara doesn’t have a word for that, though, so she leaves the sentence hanging and unfinished.

Jen doesn’t push for more. “Do you want a moment to say goodbye?” she asks, voice soft.

It should sound silly, saying goodbye to a house, but Sara knows it’s exactly what she needs. In so many ways, this place was the one she called home. Her measurements are notched in the doorway of her old bedroom—the walls still lavender from when she was ten and begged Oma to let her paint it. In the garden, hundreds of daffodils lay dormant, set there years ago by her and Oma’s hands and waiting to bloom come Spring.

Her childhood is cradled in these walls, in the soil… so much of who she was, who she is, planted around the property like painted eggs on Easter morning. Sara knows she won’t have time to find all of them, but—maybe—she can gather enough.

“Yeah,” she croaks. The word feels like sandpaper, all scratch and grit.

Jen gives her a gentle squeeze before unfolding herself from the crook of her arm. “We’ll be outside finishing up, but Sara? Take however much time you need, ok?”

She’s tempted to ask if forever would be too long, but her throat is still so tight she doesn’t want to risk the words cracking, so Sara nods instead. Jen gives her a final pat on the shoulder—her touch lingering—before she pulls away. Behind her, Sara hears the front door softly shut.

The house is so still, so empty, she feels like a phantom drifting from room to room. It’s only the occasional creaking of the floorboards under her feet, the feel of the wallpaper sliding under her touch that ground her. She goes through every room, every closet, with a diligence she’s never had. There’s a fear prodding her heart, a whispered command to commit as much as she can to memory before she forgets.

She saves the kitchen for last, her fingers tracing the grout lines over the counter. The ceramic feels cool against her palms. Most of her memories were made in this kitchen—Saturday morning banana bread steaming, fresh and soft out of the oven. The sink overflowing with dishes and flour streaking their hair when Sara would help bake and assemble plates of Christmas cookies.

How does she say goodbye to a lifetime in the meager span of a few minutes?

Silently, she shakes her head because she knows the answer is she can’t.

Her eyes drift to the kitchen window. Sara’s always admired how it looked over the garden—a living picture framed by wooden trim. She steps closer, for a better look, and her heart plummets.

Surrounded by the vibrant colors of Oma’s garden, bathed in the golden light of dusk, a charcoal shadow is wedged between the color. He reaches for one of the wine colored roses as if to skim the petals, to feel the velvet texture slide beneath his fingertips. When his hand drops, there’s a softness around his eyes and a tension highlighting the sharp line of his jaw. On him, the expression is foreign to her, but she recognizes the emotion behind it.

Longing.

She doesn’t know why he’s there, why he would risk her fury to come, but in that moment Sara knows it wasn’t with the intention of being seen. He has always been the picture of composure around her (spine straight, shoulders back) but she sees none of these things now. The line of his body is soft, shoulders bowed in a way that looks more tired than relaxed—vulnerable.

She waits for him to look up, for their eyes to meet, but he never once faces the house. Instead, he turns away—his back to her and the fields of dried corn stalks stretched out before him in a shifting sea of gold. With his hands hiding in his pockets, he is a splash of ink, a colorless silhouette in a warm, vibrant landscape.

Framed by the kitchen window, Sara can’t remember standing witness to a more lonely picture.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Saturday morning, two days before she has to return to class, Sara hears the tv click on—Seth’s voice a distorted murmur passing through the walls. Her ears strain, trying to catch his words as she lies on her back, breath caught in her chest and eyes staring past the bedroom ceiling, but his voice is too soft.

Then Sara notices Ansel’s absence. She can’t hear what he’s saying, but she can at least guess who he’s talking to.

Sara rolls onto her side, hugging her pillow to her chest, and closes her eyes. She still doesn’t understand how she struck him. She had been so full of anger, the kind of fury that twists pain and fear into something sharp. Something dangerous. It barely feels real, more nightmare than memory, but her knuckles still ache where they connected with his jaw.

She’ll have to face him eventually, but for now she lets the sound of the television and Seth’s occasional murmur wash over her like white noise.

“I hit you.”

It’s the first thing she says to him once she convinces herself to leave her bed. Her hair is still greasy—begging to be washed—but suddenly the question burns her. It shouldn’t have been possible, but her fists struck him as if he were any other man made of flesh and bone.

“You did,” he hums, eyes fixed on the television. Sara vaguely wonders how he was able to turn it on. “Is this the part where you apologize? If so, kindly hold it in until the commercial break, would you? I believe Maria is finally catching on to Juan’s dastardly deeds.”

Her face flushes. She had given herself a pep talk before she abandoned the safety of her room—had told herself that she wouldn’t let him rile her. She hates that he’s able to push her buttons without even really trying. “That’s not what—how is that even possible?!”

“Well, he certainly would be hard pressed to make it any more obvious. Last episode, he—”

“How did I hit you?!” she snaps, and for a moment the only sound that breaks through the tension is the swelling music from the television.

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