Page 70 of Whatever Will Be

This is when I happen to glance down and see it.

The corner of the black box overlaps the opening of the closet door by less than an inch and is easy to overlook unless you happen to be staring straight at it. It’s small, less than a foot wide and perhaps five inches tall, and has been nestled against a short section of wall between the door and the interior corner.

The tiny safe isn’t heavy. I can pick it up with one hand. It’s also locked and nothing on the keypad gives any hint what the combination might be.

“Trentcassini is home!” the girls yell because they have heard his key in the door before I have.

Seconds later I hear him scaling the stairs and the girls cheer the return of their uncle. Yes, Trent is their uncle even if they have no idea and I’m unsure when or how we will explain it to them.

He finds me sitting on the floor of my sister’s room.

“You okay?”

“Yes.” I hand him the safe and he helps me up off the floor with his free hand.

“What’s this?”

“I don’t know. It was in her closet.”

“Can we make our mini pizzas soon?” The girls stand in the doorway, all smiles and innocence.

Trent and I exchange a glance. Whatever is in the safe will have to wait until later. He sets it down carefully atop Jules’s desk and turns to the girls with a grin.

“You bet we can. I bought all kinds of toppings if you want to try something new. I got pepperoni. I got mushrooms. I got pineapple.”

“Pineapple?” Caitlin makes a face. “That’s not for pizza.”

“Give it a try.” Trent pats the top of her head. “And for dessert we can toast marshmallows on the backyard grill.”

“I want my marshmallow to be crispy,” says Mara.

“We can arrange that.”

She grabs his hand. “No, I mean like really crispy.”

He winks. “I promise we will succeed.”

With Trent here, I’m able to put on a better show of optimism. We assemble our mini pizzas and I turn on the oven light so the girls can watch the cheese melt and bubble. Caitlin decides that pineapple slices are a genius addition to pizza.

After dinner, Trent fires up the grill and helps the girls find long sticks to toast their marshmallows. Caitlin’s first marshmallow attempt falls off her stick and is irretrievable. Trent gives her his.

There is pizza sauce on their shirts and their chins are smeared with sticky marshmallow guts but they are happy. They allow me bathe them and put them to bed without a fuss and Trent stops in their rooms to wish them sweet dreams, as has become his routine. I watch him as his eyes linger on each of them for a little longer tonight, now that his connection to them is deeper than he’d ever guessed. The love in his eyes is unmistakable. This observation makes me love him even more.

Trent doesn’t need to tell me that he feels the same way I feel. He’d lie down in traffic and sacrifice himself to keep the girls safe.

He tucks Mara’s quilt around her and scratches the ears of her stuffed dog when she asks him to. The window blinds in her room are partially open and I reach for the lever to close them, catching a glimpse of the ascendant full moon.

“Our past and our future.

Kissed by the moon.

Fate undivided.

Whatever will be.”

I drop my hand from the window.

I feel Trent watching me as I cross the room in haste and gallop down the stairs in search of the handbag I’d thrown on the couch earlier. More than a month has passed since the day we drove to the prison to visit my father. Trent laughed out loud over the lyrics of Abigail Fisher’s signature song when I played it for him. Her CD is still in my purse.

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