Chapter Two

Lucy—the roommate who loves to hear herself sing—is rushing around the living room, gathering keys, shoes, a pair of sunglasses. I’m seated on the couch, opening up shoeboxes stuffed with some of my old things from when I lived at home. I grabbed them when I was home for my father’s funeral this week.

“You work today?” Lucy asks.

“Nope. I have bereavement leave until Monday.”

She stops in her tracks. “Monday?” She scoffs. “Lucky bitch.”

“Yes, Lucy. I’m so lucky my father died.” I say it sarcastically, of course, but I cringe when I realize it’s not actually very sarcastic.

“You know what I mean,” she mutters. She grabs her purse as she balances on one foot while sliding her shoe onto the other. “I’m not coming home tonight. Staying over at Alex’s house.” The door slams behind her.

We have a lot in common on the surface, but beyond wearing the same size clothes, being the same age, and both having four-letter names that start with an L and end with a Y, there’s not much else there that makes us more than just roommates. I’m okay with that, though. Other than the incessant singing, she’s pretty tolerable. She’s clean and she’s gone a lot. Two of the most important qualities in a roommate.

I’m pulling the lid off the top of one of the shoeboxes when my cell phone rings. I reach across the couch and grab it. When I see that it’s my mother, I press my face into the couch and fake-cry into a throw pillow.

I bring the phone to my ear. “Hello?”

There’s three seconds of silence, and then—“Hello, Lily.”

I sigh and sit back up on the couch. “Hey, Mom.” I’m really surprised she’s speaking to me. It’s only been one day since the funeral. That’s 364 days sooner than I expected to hear from her.

“How are you?” I ask.

She sighs dramatically. “Fine,” she says. “Your aunt and uncle went back to Nebraska this morning. It’ll be my first night alone since . . .”

“You’ll be fine, Mom,” I say, trying to sound confident.

She’s quiet for too long, and then she says, “Lily. I just want you to know that you shouldn’t be embarrassed about what happened yesterday.”

I pause. I wasn’t. Not even the slightest bit.

“Everyone freezes up once in a while. I shouldn’t have put that kind of pressure on you, knowing how hard the day was on you already. I should have just had your uncle do it.”

I close my eyes. Here she goes again. Covering up what she doesn’t want to see. Taking blame that isn’t even hers to take. Of course she convinced herself that I froze up yesterday, and that’s why I refused to speak. Of course she did. I have half a mind to tell her it wasn’t a mistake. I didn’t freeze up. I just had nothing great to say about the unremarkable man she chose to be my father.