“Laurie, don’t feel like you have to do this,” her mother had said. “We can perfectly well spend a day together picking out some things we’d like to remember her by and then hire someone to do the bulk of the work. We’re not the first people to ever have this problem.”
Laurie nodded slowly. “What would they do with her things?”
Her mother shrugged. “They would donate what they could. They would sell what they could.”
“And they’d throw away the rest of it,” Laurie finished. “It’s her whole life,” she added. “It seems sad.”
“It’s sad that she’s gone,” her mother said. “But she wouldn’t expect you to sit here and fuss with all this. You know she wasn’t like that. It would take you weeks.”
“Honey, you have your own place to look after,” her father said. “You have work to do, you’ll have jobs, and it will be summer. We’ll get someone to do it.”
“I agree,” Barbara said.
But Laurie just kept looking around the room, from shelf to cabinet to drawer. “I don’t think so.” She shook her head. “No. You know, she used to let me come over here whenever I wanted. When the house was too noisy and there was too much yelling, or when everything was crazy, she would let me come over and sleep in the guest room upstairs, in the orange room. You know she gave me a taste of bourbon when I was in high school? She even stayed home with us the first time Scotty went to the hospital.” She broke the spell and smiled. “I can do it. I’ll come back in the spring and do it. I can make the time.”
* * *
—
That night, when Dennis and Barbara were asleep in the green guest room upstairs, Laurie and her brothers poured drinks and pulled blankets over their legs and stretched out all over the living room furniture. “Are you sure you want to do this, Laur?” Ryan asked. “She’s got so much stuff. She has what a hoarder would have if they were organized and only had nice things.”
“I’m fine,” Laurie said. “Go home and get your beautiful wife pregnant.”
Ryan looked at his watch. “She’s sleeping right now, but I can try to get her pregnant tomorrow.”
“Get sleep while you can,” Scott said. “Lilac sleeps for maybe three hours at a time right now.” He turned to Patrick. “When did yours start sleeping through the night?”
Patrick rubbed his eyes at the thought. “I think they were both about eight months? Ten months? It’s not an all-at-once thing; they start sleeping more and then they go back and sleep less, and I guarantee you that at some point you’re going to feel like they’re doing it on purpose, like it’s a psychological experiment.” He took a sip of his drink. “It’s not, though. They don’t start experimenting on you intentionally for another few years.”
“That’s great, that’s great,” Scott said. “Just when I think my brain is fixed.”
“Your brain is fine,” Patrick said. “You’ve been doing well, right?”
“I have,” Scott said. “By the way, Laur, speaking of mental states, it looks like you’re going to be up here to celebrate the big four-oh. Are you ready for that?”
She frowned. “I’m trying not to think about it. I have enough to worry about. I have to tell you, I’m sure it’s much worse with babies, but I never knew how much work it was just owning a house. My furnace went out a couple weeks ago, and it took some time for me to come to terms with the fact that I couldn’t just call the landlord and tell them to come fix it. That I was the landlord. It was like a horror movie. I might have screamed.”
“Wait until something breaks that pours water all over your floor,” Patrick said.
Laurie put her fingers in her ears. “La la la la I’m not listening.” She relaxed deeper into the couch. “I did get somebody to come in and clean once a month, but I don’t know if I’m going to keep up with that.”
“Why’s that?” Ryan was chewing on a handful of leftover Chex mix from the memorial service. When Laurie squinted at him, he shrugged. “I took some in a baggie. They said I could.”
Laurie shook her head. “Anyway. A couple of weeks ago after she cleaned, I get back to the house, and there’s this neat pile on the armchair in the corner, and it’s three of my bras. It was kind of alarming, but then I realized she found them in the couch. And I’m just not ready for a stranger to know I take my bra off in the living room at the end of the day without standing up. I think it’s too intimate.”