Page 147 of Debugging Love

I drove up to Indiana last weekend, we spent the week clearing out the house and packing up a U-Haul, and then I followed her to Charleston with Molly perched on the passenger seat.The empty U-Haul is still parked downstairs. Chance and Drew emptied it first before working on my apartment.

“Left!” Drew hollers.

The front door is wide open to the muggy afternoon. The guys are headed down the stairs with my couch and Drew is calling the shots. “Stop moving! The ninety percent humidity is making my hands slip!” The entire apartment complex can hear him.

He and Morgan have been a thing since we returned from Chai World. I’m starting to get used to it, but I can’t imagine those two lasting long. Pretty soon, he’s gonna shred Morgan’s last nerve.

“Left!”

Morgan rolls her eyes while smiling.

“He’s yours,” I say.

“I know.” She ends it with a swoony sigh.

“I cannot–can’t feel my pinky finger. Set it down. Set it down!”

Morgan giggles. “I’m teaching him to use contractions.”

“I’ve noticed,” I say.

“His whole family talks like that,” Morgan says as she deposits a handful of books into a box. “It’s so weird.”

“Drew’s weird,” Kayla says lightly.

No one argues, not even Willa who just met him a few hours ago. She’s been quiet, though. My sister is always shy at first. She needs to get to know you, and when she does, she’ll talk your ear off.

“Oh, wow.” Willa is holding an old photo album, one I took when I moved out of Mom’s. It contains our baby pictures and the first few years of our lives, when Dad was still on the scene. I’ve been carrying it with me from apartment to apartment, a way to keep their memories alive, except I can never bear to open it.

She carries the album to an empty spot on the floor and sits. I settle next to her as she carefully opens its ragged cover. Mollyambles over to us, curls up, and rests her head on my foot. Her eyebrows take turns arching as she looks from Willa to me. The vet declared her cancer-free. We’ll monitor her carefully for new spots to be safe.

When we cleaned out Mom’s house, we didn’t have time to look through albums and scrapbooks. We just piled them onto the U-Haul. This photo album will be the first of many that we’ll pore over in the coming days and weeks.

Morgan and Kayla claim the spots on either side of us and lean over for a better view. It feels magical. My three besties in the same room. Finally. Their presence gives me the courage to really study the photos, including the family photo when I was five and Willa was three, before Dad left us. Mom looks gorgeous with her sleek brown hair and dark-rimmed glasses that compliment the lines of her squared-off, but still feminine, jaw.

“Your mom was beautiful,” Kayla says in awe.

“She really was,” I say.

“You both look like squirrels with cheeks full of nuts,” Morgan says.

“Gee, thanks.”

“Your cheeks look so squishy. I want to pinch them.” She forms crawdad pincers with her fingers.

“Are you gals going to help us or just sit there?” Chance asks.

“Just sit here,” Morgan answers.

“I am–I’m not carrying all those boxes,” Drew says. “My biceps are already in a state of atrophy from transporting several thousand pounds of wood, metal coils, and upholstery along with a myriad of unmarked boxes that weighed between thirty and forty pounds each.”

“Is he always so specific?” Willa whispers.

“Yes,” the three of us say in unison.

Willa gently closes the photo album. She places it in a box while the rest of us get back to work. Chance and Drew go for the chaise lounge next. They fight about who gets the heavy end. Drew wins, citing his superior quadriceps.

I grab a box of books and follow them down the stairs.

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