We were on the balcony. Late afternoon, The sky was golden Maddy had her feet up on the rail and I had the Blunt and we were just sitting there not talking about anything.
She laughed at something I'm not even sure what, maybe something she was thinking about, she did that sometimes and then she looked at me and said, "I love you."
I looked at her.
"For real?"
"Yeah." She held up a hand before I could say anything. "Don't. Don't say something that's going to hurt or be a lie just because you feel like you have to respond."
"I wasn't going to —"
"Shh."
I closed my mouth.
She looked out at the city. "Some other time," she said. "When it's real for you. Not right now."
I looked at her. The light was on her face and she wasn't performing anything. She'd just put something down on the table and picked it back up and moved on, like she trusted the table to hold it.
I passed her the blunt.
She took it and leaned back.
We sat there for a while longer. The city hummed below us. Neither of us said anything else about it.
Then I said, "We gotta go."
"Where?"
"Closing on a house."
She sat up. "For real?"
"Yeah."
She looked at me for a second. Then she put out the joint and stood up.
"Let me get my shoes."
* * *
The house was in upper East Highland. The part of the neighborhood that didn't feel like the neighborhood wider streets, bigger lots, actual trees. The kind of block where people watered their lawns and left their cars in the driveway because they weren't worried about them.
The realtor was already outside when we pulled up. She walked us through it one more time even though I'd already seen it twice. Four bedrooms. A real kitchen. A yard with a fence around it. Quiet. The kind of quiet that cost money in this city.
Maddy walked through it beside me. She didn't say much. She looked at things the kitchen counter, the way the light came through the back window, the size of the master. At one point she stood in the doorway of what would be Gia's room and looked at it without saying anything.
I signed where they told me to sign.
When it was done the realtor shook my hand and handed me the keys.
I stood in the empty living room and looked around.
Okay.
Maddy came and stood next to me.
"Your mom is going to cry," she said.
"Probably."
"Gia is going to act like she doesn't care and then spend three hours decorating her room."
"Also probably."
She looked around at the empty walls and the clean floors and the nothing-yet of it.
"It's a good house," she said.
"Yeah it is."
* * *
Moving day was two weeks later.
I hired movers. I wasn't doing it any other way. Mom had protested and I told her to pick what she wanted to keep and what she wanted to leave and let me handle the rest. She protested again and then did exactly what I said.
I was there when the truck pulled up to the old house. Standing outside watching the neighborhood in the morning light, the same street I'd grown up on. It looked smaller than it always had. Not in a sad way. Just in the way things look when you've gotten bigger than them.
Gia came out with a box and looked at me.
"You good?"
"Yeah. You?"
"I'm taking my whole room."
"I know."
She went back inside.
Mom came out last. She stood on the front step and looked at the house for a long moment. I stood next to her and didn't say anything.
"Your dad would've liked this," she said.
"Yeah."
"He would've been annoying about it. Taking pictures of everything."
I laughed.
She took one last look and then walked to the car. I followed her.
* * *
The new house took about a day to start feeling like theirs.
Mom claimed the kitchen immediately. By the end of the first afternoon she had a full grocery run done and something on the stove. Gia disappeared into her room and came out three hours later and asked if I could drive her to get more hangers. I drove her to get more hangers.
Rue was there too. She'd been clean for a month.
A month wasn't nothing. I knew better than to put too much weight on it I'd seen what happened when people put too much weight on a number. But a month was real. She was moving differently. She helped carry boxes without being asked. She sat at the new kitchen table that evening and ate dinner with everyone and stayed the whole time.
After dinner I found her in the backyard. She was just standing there in the dark looking at the yard.
I stood next to her.
"How are you?"
"Okay." She thought about it. "Actually okay. Not just saying it."
"Good."
"The acting classes start next week," she said.
"I know."
"I'm nervous."
"That's the right feeling."
She looked at the yard. "It's a good house, Jordan."
"Yeah."
"You did good."
I didn't say anything. I just stood there with her for a while.
Inside I could hear Mom and Gia arguing about where to put the couch. Normal house sounds. The kind that meant people were staying.