She rinsed a mug that was already clean.
“You should be thinking about your next step.”
“I am. I’m saving.”
“You’ve been saving for years.”
That was true, and it embarrassed me enough that I let her end the conversation.
She never gave me a date.
She kept accepting my household contribution.
In the second week of December, Tanner hung a stocking beside Kelsey’s.
My mother took a picture of the mantel.
I was standing by the dining room doorway, holding a basket of laundry.
“Can you move?” she asked. “You’re in the reflection.”
On Christmas Eve, I worked until four, helping clear the last orders from the cooler.
My coworker Mariah hugged me before she left.
She and her husband were flying to Florida that evening to visit his parents.
“Text if you need anything,” she said.
I said I would.
At home, my mother had already set the dining table for Christmas breakfast.
Four plates.
I stood looking at them long enough for her to notice.
“You’re usually up later,” she said.
“I can get up.”
“We’ll see how the morning goes.”
I ate a sandwich in my room.
Near midnight, I went downstairs for water and heard her talking to my father.
“Do it before she gets comfortable,” she said. “Otherwise she’ll make a scene and stay another year.”
My father asked, “Tomorrow?”
“Tanner’s family might come over in the afternoon. I’m not having this hanging over us.”
I went back upstairs before either of them came into the hall.
I took the walnut box from the closet and put it on my nightstand.
Then I placed my wallet, keys, and phone beside it.
I didn’t pack.
That is the part I have trouble explaining.
I had heard them. I knew what they meant.
But I lay down and told myself they would talk to me in the morning. They would give me a week. They would remember I had nowhere arranged.
I slept badly.
At 6:32, I woke to the smell of cinnamon coffee.
My mother made it every Christmas.
Then I heard a drawer open.
She was standing at my dresser, pushing clothes into a trash bag.
“Mom?”
“Get dressed.”
“What are you doing?”
“We talked about this.”
“No. You told me to think about moving.”
She pulled my grandmother’s cardigan off a hanger and dropped it into the bag.
“Please don’t do that.”
“Then help.”
My father stood in the doorway wearing jeans and his work boots.
There was an empty suitcase beside him. One of its wheels had broken years earlier.
I sat up.
“Can I at least have a few days?”
My mother looked at my father.
He picked up the bag.
“Get your things, Amber.”
Nobody was shouting yet. That made it harder to understand what was happening.
I dressed in yesterday’s sweater and jeans while my mother waited in the hall. When I came downstairs, Kelsey was already holding her phone.
My stocking was still hanging beside hers.
Then my mother reached for it.
I didn’t watch it burn all the way.
I went upstairs for the walnut box, picked up my phone and wallet, and took my medication from the bathroom cabinet.
My mother followed me to the foot of the stairs.
“You can arrange to get the rest later.”
I put the box into my canvas work bag.
In the front hall, I sat on the little bench Grandpa had built and pulled on my boots.
My father was impatient at the door.
I could feel him watching while I tied the second lace.
Kelsey said something about finally having the house to themselves.
I didn’t answer her.
Outside, there were three inches of fresh snow on the Honda. I put the bag of clothes in the back seat and the walnut box on the passenger-side floor, where it wouldn’t slide.
Then I scraped the windshield.
Through the front window, I could see my mother straightening the remaining stockings.
She moved Tanner’s into the space where mine had been.
I got into the car before she looked out.
At the end of the driveway, I stopped.
The road was empty. The dashboard clock read 6:57.
I had enough gas to drive somewhere.
I just didn’t know where somewhere was.
I parked beneath a light at an all-night gas station on the edge of town.
Inside, a cashier was putting fresh coffee into the machine. A radio played Christmas music too quietly to make out the words.
I bought a coffee and a breakfast sandwich.
The cashier told me to have a merry Christmas.
I carried the bag back to the car, set it on the console, and opened the walnut box.
There was a brass key tied to a leather tag.
Front door, Grandpa had written.
Below it lay a folded note, a business card, and a photograph.
The photograph showed him standing beside the small cherry tree behind the house, holding a baby wrapped in a white blanket.
On the back, my grandmother had written:
Amber and Grandpa. May 2000.
He looked younger than I remembered him ever looking.
He was smiling down at me.
I put the photograph against the steering wheel and unfolded the note.
Sweetheart,
If you need help and I’m not there, call Dale. He knows where the important things are.
Anytime, any reason.
Love, Grandpa.
The business card belonged to Dale Peton at North Shore Community Bank. A handwritten home number appeared on the back, beneath the printed office number.
I knew his name.