“Why?” I shove my notebook in my back pocket and flick through the dirty clothes on Jay’s bed with the end of my pen.

Tripp blinks at me.

I stare back.

“You know,” he says, shifting from side to side, “to talk about what happened, make a statement, funeral arrangements.”

“Won’t his parents do that?” Even though I haven’t touched anything, I rub my hands on the side of my pants.

Tripp’s eyes flick from me to Teddy. He’s worried I’ve caught him in a lie or that he’s given something away; what, I’m not sure.

“Well, the service and stuff—sure. But we want to make sure he’s remembered properly.”

Or get your stories straight, I think.

It occurs to me there might be another reason Tripp greeted us on the stairs today instead of one of the other brothers. With his sheepish grin and mop of yellow hair, he’s about as threatening as a golden retriever. I give him a hard look but he’s staring dejectedly at the floor—a small slump to his shoulders. I don’t think it’s an act but know better than to assume his pitiable state reflects his sorrow at Jay’s death. It could also be guilt.

I turn to the room. Empty bottles of Gatorade and cans of Mountain Dew give off a sugar-sweet odor mixed with the unwashed gym clothes in a pile on the floor. I look around for beer cans or handles of vodka and see none, which means someone has been here already. When I glance back at Tripp, he’s still blinking at his shoes. A towel hangs off the closet door, a handwritten quote taped next to it: When you can’t make them see the light, make them feel the heat. There’s a large wall calendar with a photo of a mountain range at the top, full of events at the bottom. Home games, away games, tailgates, a big party for Halloween, prices for a fog machine rental, cover bands. Facing this level of organization, some of my earlier images of Jay dissolve. It’s strange, though, with all this detail, that the calendar is still tacked to October.

I flip up the page. There are a few dates penciled in for November: a weekend in Jacksonville, a Georgia–Auburn tailgate, the Georgia Tech game Thanksgiving weekend, Hell written in large letters across the first full week, but that’s it.

I pull out my phone and snatch a few photos.

Next, I tug a three-ring binder off a narrow bookshelf and flip through colorful save-the-date invitations, math problems, and what looks like biology notes, all dated two years earlier.

There are matching desks under the windows. Jay’s holds a spider’s web of cords.

“Where’s his laptop?”

Tripp’s head jerks, and he tries to mask his reaction by stretching his arm.