Remarkably Bright Creatures(102)

“Holy crap. That’s right. You sold it.”

“It’s okay. I need to let it go. Too many ghosts.” Tova isn’t sure she believes the words, but she’s becoming accustomed to them, at least.

Cameron studies his sneakers. “I guess I’m glad I caught you here, then. Before you moved to that retirement home.”

“Oh,” Tova says, swatting the air as if to clear away his words. “I’m not going there.”

“You’re not?”

“Heavens, no.”

“Where are you going, then?”

An unfettered laugh escapes from deep in Tova’s chest. “You know what? I don’t know. To Barbara’s. Or Janice’s. For a while. Until I figure out what comes next.”

“Good plan,” says Cameron. “I mean, that’s coming from a guy living in a camper.” He grins, and the heart-shaped dimple on his cheek indents, and for a moment he looks every part the impish grandson. Tova glances down, checking to make sure her slippers are still contacting the floor, because it feels like she’s aloft, floating, unfurling toward the ceiling with unwitting elegance, like Marcellus in his old tank. Her heart is full of helium, lifting her skyward.

She chuckles. “I suppose we’re both homeless, then.” She gestures to the hallway. “Would you like to see where your father grew up?”

ERIK’S OLD BEDROOM had been the most difficult to clean. Three decades, it sat empty. She swept the room regularly over the years, and even changed the linens on his bed occasionally, but after the men from the secondhand shop hauled the furniture away, she found herself balking at the ancient dust bunnies gathered in the corners. As if one of them might contain some fragment of him, still.

The hardwood floor is discolored where Erik’s throw rug once sat. Sun slants through the naked window. A sea breeze gently sways the branches of an old shore pine outside, and the light casts a wraithlike shadow on the opposite wall. Once, on a full-moon night when young Erik had forgotten to shut the curtains, he caught sight of that shadow and bolted across the hallway into Tova and Will’s room, dove under their covers, convinced he was being haunted. Tova held him until he slept, then continued to hold him all through the night.

Cameron’s eyes rake over every inch of the room. Perhaps he’s trying to commit it to memory, to scan it like Janice Kim’s computer. Tova has begun to retreat from the room to give him a measure of privacy when he says, “I wish I’d met him.”

She steps back in, placing a hand on his elbow. “I wish you had, too.”

“How did you, like, go on?” He looks down at her and swallows hard. “I mean, he was here one day and gone the next. How do you recover from something like that?”

Tova hesitates. “You don’t recover. Not all the way. But you do move on. You have to.”

Cameron is gazing at the floor where Erik’s bed once was and biting his lip thoughtfully. Suddenly, he crosses the room and jabs at one of the floorboards with his sneaker toe.

“What happened here?”

Tova tilts her head. “What do you mean?”

“Your whole house is red oak floorboards. But this one piece is white ash.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Tova shuffles over and adjusts her glasses, scrutinizing the floorboard. There doesn’t seem to be anything remarkable about it.

“See, the grain lines are different. And the finish, it almost matches, but not quite.” He produces a cluster of keys from his pocket, kneels, and starts working a key chain that’s meant to open bottles into the crack between the floorboards. Moments later, to Tova’s shock, the board pops up, revealing an open space underneath.

“I knew it!” Cameron squints into the cavity.

“Good heavens. Who would do such a thing?”

Cameron laughs. “Any teenage boy who ever lived?”

“But what would he need to hide?”

“Uh . . . well, my friend Brad used to steal his dad’s magazines, and—”

“Oh!” Tova flushes. “Oh dear.”

“I don’t think that’s what we’re dealing with here.” Cameron pulls out a small parcel. Its plastic wrapping crunches when he hands it to Tova, who drops it once she realizes what’s inside. Snack cakes. Or what were once snack cakes. They’re hard and gray as stones now.

“Wow, Creamzies. These are old-school,” Cameron says, picking the package up and studying it. “You know, I saw a show on some science channel about them once. Urban legend says they’ll survive a nuclear holocaust, but it’s not actually true, see, because the diglycerides they use as stabilizers don’t—”

“Cameron,” Tova interrupts quietly. “There’s something else in there.”

“In here?” He holds up the petrified cakes, squinting.

“No, in there.” Her focus is fixed on the floorboard compartment.

It’s one of Tova’s mother’s old embroidered tea towels, wrapped around something the size of a deck of cards.

Cameron takes it out and hands it to Tova. Her fingers tremble as she unravels the towel. Inside is a painted wooden horse.

“My Dala Horse.” Her whisper comes out like gravel. She runs a finger down the figurine’s smooth wooded back. Every last splintered piece is glued back into place flawlessly. Even the paint is touched up.