I opened the fridge, mentally prepared to see mold that would make an antibiotic lab envious, but all that was present on the pristine shelves was a six-pack of locally brewed beer.

I closed the door and sat on the floor with my back to the fridge, looking up. I had worked hard and felt lonely; there was no better excuse for a cold beer than that.

“Just go to bed, Ellie,” I said aloud. But I wasn’t tired.

I opened the fridge, and then closed it again, my fingers creating that comforting pop and fizz sound I loved so much. The living room looked like a real apartment, with actual decorations and lamps on the end tables at each end of the sofa and one beside the recliner. The dishwasher was still running with the last half of dishes and silverware, and there was a knife block and full salt and pepper shakers just out of the box on the counter.

I tilted my head back, and then licked the foam from my upper lip, smiling at the small victory while trying to ignore my utter failure.

Chapter Nineteen

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I was sitting on the sofa with my feet propped on the coffee table, wiggling my toes in my knee-high fuzzy socks and wearing one of Tyler’s sweatshirts that was big enough to be a nightgown. I breathed in the smell of the pumpkin caramel latte candles I’d just lit, feeling comforted by the lines in the carpet from the vacuum and the gleam from the wood polish on the end tables.

It had taken me nearly two weeks to unpack each box and find a place for everything the twins owned. Tyler had been busy, home just long enough to see his things unpacked and get a hot shower before heading back to the barracks. After their belongings were put away, I cleaned every inch, and then used some of my savings to buy a few inexpensive finishing touches for the smaller tables, like the candles and antique firefighting books I’d found at Goodwill and had stacked flat next to the lamps the boys already had. Standing on one end table were vintage fire hose couplings from a New York firehouse that had been welded vertically on eBay for cheap and a hundred-year-old copper and brass fire extinguisher that I’d sat by the door.

A photo album from Taylor and Tyler’s childhood was sitting in my lap, opened to my favorite picture of Tyler and his mother. She was squatting next to him, surrounded by their baseball team, the Crushers. She was the coach, her right arm hooked around his middle, her left arm around Taylor with a wide, toothy smile. They looked happier than my family had ever been. I couldn’t imagine what her death had done to them.