Page 13 of The Witch's Orchard
“Hmm,” I say, and gesture for him to continue with the tour.
He leads me through the house, through a middle room that’s being used for wall-to-wall built-in bookshelves and into a dining room at the back of the house. There’s a matching set of table and chairs that look barely used.
“The piano used to be in here,” he says. “There was a table in that corner over there and Molly used to play there sometimes. She had a doll’s house set up on it.”
He leads me through another hall-room, this one empty. There are still barely visible holes in the white paint where nails once stuck through. From the hall, we come into the kitchen. It’s a big, farmhouse kitchen with butcher-block countertops and a white apron sink, tons of cabinets, and a wide island. A kitchen table sits against a window, and I guess that, when Max finds the inclination to eat, he sits right there, alone, a book in one hand and a forgotten fork in the other.
We go out of the kitchen, through another hall, and up a set of stairs. We pause at a bedroom with a full-sized bed covered with quilts, very neatly made up, a pair of tennis shoes at the foot.
“This is my room,” he says. There are still two model airplanes hanging from the ceiling near the window. A telescope sits on a tripod under them, pointed at the sky. But there are also bills on Max’s desk, a battered laptop, a pad of Post-its, a mostly empty cup of coffee. This is the room of a kid who has raised himself.
“Thanks,” I say.
He nods noncommittally and leads me across the hall to a closed door.
“This was her room,” he says.
He opens the door.
I’m not sure what I expected. A little girl’s room, left just the way it was when she was taken? Stuffed teddy bears and dolls and pink blankets littering the bed? A dresser full of cute little farm girl clothes?
The room is empty.
The walls are white, the floor is bare, there is no furniture. It is an empty room, that’s all.
“Where—” I start.
“My dad,” Max says with a sigh. “After my mom… Well, we sort of cleaned house. My dad donated all of Molly’s things along with my mom’s. I think it was just too much for him. He called my aunts and they came down and helped him go through everything. It all happened in a weekend.”
I look from one side of the room to another.
The emptiness itself tells me something. The room was never filled with anything else. It never became an office or a hobby room or a storage closet or a guest room. It is still Molly’s room, just without Molly’s things, without Molly.
I scan from the floor, up the wall and over the window, onto the ceiling. There are little plastic stars there, sucking up sunlight. I suppose they do it every day. Just like real stars, they go on shining whether we’re here to see them or not.
I thank Max again and he closes the door.
“There’s nothing left?” I ask.
“There’s a box,” he says. He goes back into his room, and I follow him and watch him open a closet and crouch down in the back, pull out acardboard file box. He puts it on the bed and opens the lid with a heavy sigh.
“It’s not much,” he says.
He stands there, near the bed but not too near, while I go through the things.
There’s a little vintage book of fairy tales with the name “Janice Andrews” written neatly inside.
“My mom’s,” Max says quietly. His hands are shoved into the barn coat he’s still wearing.
There’s a white-and-lavender crocheted blanket, sized for a child, and a pair of crocheted angels meant to be hung up as Christmas ornaments. There’s a tattered hardback ofWhere the Wild Things Are. I run my fingers over the familiar old drawings, the little boy in the wolf suit.
“Max,” I say. It’s the name of the boy in the book.
Max nods. “It was mine first, but Molly loved it. I think it sort of tickled her to imagine me in a book. But my mom always teased me that I was never like Max.”
“Never wild?”
He shakes his head, looks at the floor.
