Remarkably Bright Creatures(85)

Ethan holds the shirt close to his chest. “It was just a T-shirt,” he mumbles.

“It was important to you,” Tova says, her voice shaky.

“Many things are important to me.”

“I’m sorry,” Tova whispers.

“Don’t say that, love.” His large green eyes are heavy. “I’d give away a hundred of those bloody shirts to redo that supper at my house.” He holds the shirt back up, taking in the Grateful Dead concert image. He smiles at Tova. “You really bought this on the internet?”

“Indeed. And I drove to Tukwila to pick it up.”

Ethan’s eyes widen. “You drove all the way down there?”

“Yes.”

“On the freeway?”

“Well, there wasn’t another practical route.”

“You’re quite a woman, Tova. Did you know that?”

Tova doesn’t know how to respond, so she just holds out the stack of bills to pay for her groceries. But when she arrives back home, while she smears butter on a wafer cracker and slices the single green apple, she replays his words in her head on a loop.

TOVA MEETS JESSICA SNELL at an attorney’s office down in Elland at eleven on Wednesday morning, as instructed, to sign her portion of the closing papers.

The papers, it turns out, are not quite ready. The hard knot in Tova’s chest softens, briefly, at the notion that she might not have to do this today. But it’s a glitch with the copier; it will only delay things a few minutes. The receptionist apologizes profusely for this setback and offers Jessica and Tova coffee, which Jessica declines but Tova gladly accepts. It’s the watery kind, and the paper cup has a waxy aftertaste, but Tova sips it anyway. While they wait in a small conference room, Jessica tells Tova more about the buyers, which is not information that Tova asked for, necessarily. It’s a family from Texas. Three little ones. The husband’s job has relocated him, and he and his wife took a trip up this summer to scope out real estate. They fell hard for Tova’s house. The view, the architecture. They said that although they’ll be making plenty of updates, the house has amazing bones.

“My father would be pleased to hear that,” Tova says politely.

The paperwork finally makes its entrance. A woman wearing slacks and a cantaloupe-colored blouse sits next to Tova and walks her through the forms. Tova’s pen scratches on the paper as she signs her name.

“The buyers do appreciate your willingness to close quickly,” Jessica says. “Their agent wanted me to pass that along.”

“Certainly,” Tova says. A quick closing suited her as well. Why drag it out? The Texans had been gracious, too, to push back the turning over of keys for a couple of days to accommodate her Charter Village move-in date.

“And this is a little odd, but they also noted that the house was phenomenally neat and tidy when they did the inspection,” Jessica says with a genuine smile. “Their agent told me the wife said it looked like something out of a magazine. I thought you might enjoy hearing that.”

Tova lets out a small laugh. “As I’m sure you’re aware, I am nothing if not neat and tidy.”

“Everyone in Sowell Bay is aware of that. You’ll be missed, Tova.”

With a smile and congratulations, the woman in the cantaloupe blouse shakes her hand, and then Jessica Snell shakes her hand, too. Tova never liked shaking hands, well, not with people, anyway. Octopuses are another story. But she clasps.

So, it’s done.

LATER THAT AFTERNOON, Tova ventures up to the attic, to what little is left of the piles of linens and photographs. It’s time to finish now.

On the ceiling, the rafters glow in the afternoon sun. Tova eases herself down to lie on her back on the floor and stares up at the beams the way she used to when she was a teenager. Like the house is a great wooden monster and she’s looking, from inside, at its rib cage. It does indeed have amazing bones, and it will make a good home for someone. For this family from Texas. For their three little ones.

Will the children use the attic as a playroom? Tova hopes so. She pictures three happy siblings, laughing together under the rafters, talking to one another in pint-sized Texas accents. Perhaps there will be more children; perhaps the parents are not done yet, and the family will grow, filling the house, bursting it from the seams like the large clan from Ethan’s unfulfilled dream. The parents will grow old atop this mountain of a family they’ve built, and even if parts of it crumble, from time to time, there will be enough left to support them.

They will not have to pack up tea towels alone.

She drags in a long breath and sits up. “Enough of that,” she says aloud. Enough of allowing one single summer night in 1989 to shape every last aspect of her life. Enough searching for answers that no longer exist. Enough of living with these ghosts, in this house. Charter Village will be a new start.

For the next two hours, she packages up the remaining towels and sheets and other odds and ends. To a box of books she’s keeping, packed half-full so it won’t be too unwieldy, she adds the Sowell Bay High School yearbook where she first found Daphne Cassmore.

She remembers the photo, the young woman’s smiling face, now pressed between the pages of the heavy book. Had it been a fool’s errand, attempting to find her? Perhaps, but how could she not try? Wherever and whoever she is, Daphne Cassmore is the last person who saw Erik alive. Tova will never be able to stop her gaze from lingering on faces in crowds that bear even a slight resemblance to that yearbook photo.