Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Jack
The key had come in a plastic bag along with the rest of Cassie’s life: phone, wallet, a watch with a cracked face.
The nurse had slid it across the desk without looking up.
I’d lingered in the corridor for a long time afterward, turning the metal over in my palm until it grew warm, before finally shoving it into my pocket.
That was four hours ago. I hadn’t stopped since: the attorney’s office, the GAL—a woman in a sharp suit who explained she was there to represent Lily’s interests, as if I wasn't—and two phone calls made from the driver’s seat of a rental car because I couldn't stomach the silence of a coffee shop. Assumable. That was the word the attorney used for the mortgage. A clean, clinical word that suggested a simple transition. He’d handed me the forms—there were always more forms—and sent me on my way.
Now, I was idling at the curb on Clement Street. The engine was off. The key was biting into my palm, but I was still just sitting here, staring at the front door.
"Right," I muttered, then finally got out of the car.
The porch had three wooden steps; the middle one gave way with a soft, rotting dip.
I’ll fix that, I thought, the first concrete task I’d clung to in days.
The key turned without a fight. I stepped inside and the air hit me.
It was a heavy, sudden wall of laundry detergent and something faintly floral.
It didn't have a name, but it was Cassie.
It was the physical ghost a house keeps when the person is ripped out of it.
I stayed in the doorway, lungs burning, trying to hold that scent still before my own presence scrubbed it away.
Lily’s backpack was right where she’d dropped it.
Pink, one strap unzipped, a plastic water bottle dangling from a cheap carabiner.
Two coats hung on the pegs above: a dark green parka and a small purple jacket with some kind of animal embroidered on the pocket.
I couldn't tell what it was in the dim light, and I couldn't bring myself to touch it to find out.
I moved further in.
The living room was small and still held the shape of a Tuesday morning.
A fleece blanket was slumped over the back of the couch.
On the coffee table, a coloring book lay open to a half-finished garden, crayons scattered where they’d rolled.
A bookshelf was crammed tight against the far wall, sagging under the weight of paperbacks and a small, dusty TV.
It was a dense, quiet life. There didn't seem to be any room left in it for me.
There was a photo tucked between two spines. I almost passed it, then doubled back.
Cassie and me. We were teenagers, maybe fifteen and thirteen, squinting against a harsh summer sun at some forgotten county fair.
She had her arm hooked around my neck, grinning at the lens like she’d just won a prize.
I wasn't looking at the camera; I was looking at her.
I had no memory of the day, or who had been holding the shutter.
I set it back, making sure the edges lined up exactly with the shelf.
The kitchen was through a door at the back.
A couple days' worth of dishes sat in the sink—the clutter that builds up when you assume you have all the time in the world to finish it.
There was a mug with a shriveled tea bag still at the bottom.
I turned the tap on, found the soap, and started on them.
The water was scalding, but I didn't turn it down.
I just needed the steam to fill the room.
The fridge was full of things that weren't going to last. I found a box of bin bags under the sink and worked through the shelves methodically: the milk, the Tupperware I didn't dare open, a half-eaten Lunchable. It was a task with a clear end point. I could handle a task.
Because after the dishes and the fridge, there was the rest of it. The wardrobe, the bedside table—the heavy, permanent artifacts of a person who had been here last week and wasn't here now. I wasn't ready for any of that.
The dishes didn't require me to be ready. So I stayed at the sink.
* * *
I made it to the hospital just after two.
Deb was at the nurse’s station, silhouetted against the fluorescent hum of the monitors. She didn't wait for me to reach the desk; she just caught my eye and jerked her chin toward the corridor.
"She’s been awake since noon," Deb said, her voice dropping into that low, professional tone. "Ate a decent lunch. One of the volunteers brought a puzzle. She hasn't touched the pieces, but she won’t let go of the box."
I nodded, my eyes already drifting down the hall. "Anyone come by?"
"No." A beat of silence followed, and she lowered her voice. "Dr. Clarke was in this morning. Early. She had a meeting with Phelps."
I looked at her, wondering how much she knew.
"Thought you should know," Deb said. She didn't offer anything else, just lowered her head and let the scratch of her pen end the conversation.
I stood there for a beat, then headed down the corridor.
The door was propped halfway. Lily was swallowed by the hospital bed, sitting cross-legged with the puzzle box hugged against her chest. She wasn't building anything; she was just gripping the cardboard the same way she’d white-knuckled that stuffed rabbit yesterday.
When she saw me, her expression didn't break into a smile, but the tension in her jaw seemed to give up, just a little.
I dragged the heavy vinyl chair closer and sat. The metal legs screeched against the linoleum.
"Hey," I said.
"Hey." Her voice was thin, like paper. She looked down at the box in her lap. "It’s a hundred pieces."
"That’s a hell of a lot of pieces."
"Deb said we could use the table." She didn't look up, just traced the edge of the box with a thumb. "If you wanted to."
I looked at her. Five years old, carrying a puzzle box around a hospital corridor all morning, waiting for someone to come back like they said they would.
"Yeah," I said. "Let's do the puzzle."
She slid off the bed without a word and led me to the small table by the window like she'd been planning the route. She opened the box carefully, both hands, and tipped the pieces out in a pile. Then she looked at it for a moment.
"Mommy always does the edges first," she said.
"That's the right way to do it," I said.
She nodded, like this was important information, and picked up a corner piece. She turned it over once in her fingers, set it down, picked up another. Methodical and careful.
Cassie's kid, alright.
We worked through the edges in silence mostly. She'd hand me a piece occasionally without looking up, some instinct about which ones were mine to try. The afternoon light came in flat through the blinds and for twenty minutes none of the rest of it existed.
A knock at the door. Deb, half in.
"Mr. Henley. Sorry to interrupt." She glanced at Lily. "Can I borrow your uncle for a minute?"
Lily looked at me. "You have to come back."
"I'll come back," I said.
In the corridor Deb kept her voice low. Provisional approval, she said. Pending the home walkthrough and a few follow-up steps, but Phelps was recommending placement proceed. There'd be check-ins, a caseworker assigned, a review in thirty days.
I stood there and let it land.
"Okay," I said. "Thank you."
Deb nodded and left me to it.
Through the door I could hear Lily sorting pieces. The small sound of plastic on plastic.
I was thirty-six years old, and not one day of it had prepared me for this. Square one. No run-up, no practice round.
Alright then.
I went back in.