Page 8 of True Blue

I nod, watching her pick up and pack my stuff. Her posture is less tense, and I relax a little further. “And she’s said hearing from you makes her feel less alone there, right?”

“Yeah,” she says, dropping a pair of pants into a box. “But, what if—wait how did you know she said that?” She turns to face me, forehead scrunched as her eyes light up. Guilt twists in my gut. “Have you read our emails?”

I shrug, threading some of my comforter through my fingers. “You left your laptop open, and I was curious how she was doing.” Layla scoffs and I pick my head up to look her in the eye. “You weren’t the only one Aunt Sandy took her away from,” I say, voice harsher than I intended. Aunt Sandy may have been Mom’s best friend, but I will never forgive her for abandoning Dad and taking Janette away from Layla when we all already lost enough.

Layla’s eyes soften and she walks over, climbing onto my bed and sliding over till her shoulder touches mine. “I miss Mom,” Layla whispers.

I stare at the wall across from me, finding the picture of Mom in front of her bakery. Dad, Aunt Sandy, and Uncle Levisurround her as they all smile in front of theGrand Openingsign. It’s tucked into the pin board Gwen made for me, concert tickets and random pins surrounding it. Mom’s reddish-brown hair is long and frizzy, her belly round with Gwen, as she beams at the camera and Dad stares down at her with a similar smile. “Me too,” I say and turn toward Layla. “Seeing Janette is going to bring up old feelings again. For both of you.” I wrap my arm around her shoulder as she nods. “But Gwen and I will be there too.” Picturing Janette, smiling at her mom’s campaign event on Instagram, I repeat, “For both of you.”

Layla nods again, leaning her head on my shoulder. We sit together for a little bit, the silence comfortable since we’ve sat in these feelings before. We’d been in a similar position right after Mom’s funeral, Layla sticking to my side through the whole thing and barely talking the entire day. A week later, she had barely left the house, only moving from her bedroom to the living room couch when Dad poked his head in and tried to rally her to get up. I knew I couldn’t do anything about losing Mom, drowning in my own feelings around that, but Janette was still out there. Layla came down to breakfast for the first time on her own the day after I suggested emailing Janette since we didn’t have her new number yet.

“I’ll be there for you too, Axe,” Layla says suddenly, lifting her head up to look at me. “Perks of having the nerdier twin go to college first, I already know the whole campus and which bars will serve us underage.” I chuckle.

“Neither of you should be drinking yet,” Gwen says, standing in my doorway with her hands on her hips. Our goody-two-shoes older sister always keeps her nose clean, even when she’s sticking it where it doesn’t belong.

I roll my eyes at her. “Yeah, ‘cause you’ve never had a drop of alcohol, right sis?”

“I’m almost legal,” she says, walking into my room and eyeing the mess similar to how Layla did when she showed up. “You two are not.”

“Almost is still not legal, G,” Lay says, scooting off the bed. Standing near each other, I note the jarring differences in my sisters, Lay in loungewear and fuzzy socks and Gwen in a patterned dress, black hair curled and pinned up on either side of her head. Still, I see why people initially think they’re the twins out of the three of us. Minus their hair colors and Gwen’s heterochromia, they share all of Mom’s features, including her average stature.

“How do you live in this?” Gwen asks, pointing to the mountain of dirty clothes next to my scattered pile of shoes on the floor by my closet.

I stay on the bed, raising an eyebrow again. “Did Dad send you guys to harass me?”

Gwen picks up a loafer I don’t remember the last time I wore, searching for the match through the scattered pile. “We leave for the Coast in two days, Axel. You need to get packing.”

I slouch down, huffing out a breath, and eyeing my plants across the room. “I can throw all my clothes into some bags in under an hour. What more do I need to pack?”

Layla hands Gwen the matching shoe, turning back to the box she had been slowly filling with clothes and sitting down to fold more of my stuff.

“Shower stuff, laptop and charging cords, bedside lamp, sheets, towels, laundry basket, pictures for your walls.” Gwen ticks off each item on her fingers as she spouts her list.

“Spare contacts, extra solution, back up glasses,” Layla adds, not looking up from the shirt she’s folding to push her own glasses up her nose. Gwen points at her but looks at me with a nod.

I cross my arms over my chest. “I have time.”

“You really don’t,” Gwen says, turning toward my closet and pulling open the door against the clutter stacked in front of it. “Go down to the garage and grab another box, please.”

I scoot off the bed, knowing they won’t leave if I try to stop them. Layla stands with the box she just filled with random clothes, handing it to me as I head toward the door. “Put this by the stairs on your way.”

I glare down at her as I take it and head out of my room, passing the floor to ceiling patchwork of framed photos as I walk down the hall toward the living room. Mom’s smiles make me grin and my eyes snag on a picture of Layla, Janette, and me covered in mud and laughing in Aunt Sandy and Uncle Levi’s backyard. Remembering how Janette started that mud fight after I pulled her hair, I shake my head, continuing past.

Dad sits on the couch, typing on his laptop as a soccer game plays on the TV across from him.

“You had to send the troops in after me?” I walk past him, dropping the box next to the stairs beside the pile of packed crates and suitcases my sisters have already filled.

Dad chuckles, glancing up at me with his glasses balanced on the tip of his nose. “They volunteered when I asked how far along you were. I take it things are moving faster now?”

“They’ve taken over the packing. I’ve been relegated to box retrieval.” I pout for a moment, walking into the kitchen and passing the breakfast nook. I open the garage door right next to it, shivering as the chill of the dark room permeates my tee shirt. I don’t think a car has entered this garage for the entirety of my life, two rows of storage shelves taking up the middle of the cement floor. I weave through them, going to the mountain of boxes in the corner my family tends to hoard whenever we get a decent sized one. Picking one at random, I turn to leave, my eyes automatically trailing over to the pile of bakery equipment sitting in the opposite corner of the room.

An industrial spiral mixer, rolling sheet pan rack, and dough sheeter sit together collecting dust, Mom’s bakery stickers stuck to the side of them. I can’t help but glance over at them every time I come in here, a stabbing ache striking me between the ribs each time I see them. A warm feeling hits me every time I see her photos in the halls or smell the bottle of perfume Dad keeps on his dresser. But the equipment always makes me feel like we failed her. Clifford’s Cupcakes was Mom’s dream, and we couldn’t keep it alive after she died.

I pull my eyes away from the pile and take the box into the kitchen, shutting the garage door behind me.

“You going out tonight?” Dad asks as I walk past.

I stop in the threshold of the hallway to turn back. “Mason’s having a party, but I’ve been trying to find an excuse not to go, so no.”

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