Page 223 of ClickBack

“You took yours back while I was still hanging the shelf.”

“And now you can finish.”

She smiles despite herself. He kisses her forehead. I remember him standing behind her when she was small, his large hand over hers on the handle of a screwdriver, letting her believe she had assembled her own bookcase. I was the one who took the picture.

He looks toward me. “Morning, Giselle.”

“Byron.”

That is enough for us today.

Jarrett comes around the truck carrying a folded moving blanket. Byron steps toward him, and I stop folding the flap on a box.

“Anything else coming out?” Byron asks.

“Dresser in the back,” Jarrett says.

Byron looks toward the truck. Graves comes down the ramp with a cardboard carton and puts it on the porch beside them.

“Rae said this stays. Donations.”

“I can take it,” Byron says.

“Thank you,” Rae calls from the car.

Jarrett returns to the truck. Byron carries the carton to his trunk. I finish folding the flap and find that it doesn’t belong to a box anymore. It is a loose piece of cardboard I have been holding for no reason.

The rooms empty. One of Jeremy’s cousins finds a phone behind the washing machine that nobody admits owning until the movers are already loading the last chair. Trina claims it as the one she lost two summers ago, then wants to charge it before they leave.

“Why?” Rae asks.

“There might be pictures.”

“There will be pictures in North Carolina, too.”

Trina drops it in her bag. “You get mean when you move.”

“Get in the car.”

Outside, Ms. Kandy presses money into Zion’s palm and closes his fingers over it.

“Don’t tell your daddy how much.”

“I’m right here, Ma,” Jeremy says.

“Then you heard me.”

Zion hugs her, solemn with the responsibility of the cash, then comes to me. He is almost looking me straight in the face now. I still expect the small boy who ran into my knees.

“You’re going to like your room,” I tell him.

“I already like it.”

“Then you’re ahead of me.”

He holds on harder. I kiss his cheek before he remembers to object.

“Send me a picture when you get that chair together.”