“What did you do?”
His tone made Grace flinch.
His face changed. The anger fell right out of it.
I stepped in front of the girls. “Do not speak to me like that.”
He pressed both hands to his head. “Why is this open?”
“Because your daughter told me her mother lives down here.”
His face changed. The anger fell right out of it.
Grace’s voice shook. “Did I do bad?”
He looked at her like his heart had split open. “No. No, baby.”
“I was going to tell you.”
I crouched down. “Why don’t you two go watch cartoons? I’ll bring soup.”
They hesitated, then went upstairs.
I turned back to him. “Talk.”
He looked around the basement like he hated that I was seeing it. “I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
Silence.
That took some of the heat out of me.
I laughed once. “Exactly.”
He came down the stairs slowly. “It’s not what you think.”
“I don’t even know what to think.”
His voice cracked. “It’s all I had left.”
That took some of the heat out of me.
Not all of it, but enough.
I said nothing.
He sat on the bottom step and stared at the floor. “After she died, everyone kept telling me to be strong. So I was. I worked. I packed lunches. I got through each day. People said I was amazing.” He laughed bitterly. “I just kept going for the girls, but I was numb.”
I said nothing.
“I put her things down here because I couldn’t get rid of them,” he said. “Then the girls would ask about her, so sometimes we came down. We looked at pictures. Watched videos. Talked about her.”
“You knew?”
“Grace thinks her mother lives in the basement.”
He closed his eyes. “I know.”
That hit hard.
“You knew?”
“Not at first. Then she kept saying it, and I… I didn’t correct her the way I should have.”
“That is not a small mistake.”
Then I asked the question I had been afraid to ask.
“I know.”
I looked around the room. The cardigan. The rain boots. The little tea set.
“Why keep it like this?”
His answer came fast. “Because down here, she was still part of the house.”
