Where We Left Off by Megan Squires Read Free Book Online Page B

she made me feel.
    It was later that night that I told her. We had finished eating dinner with her grandma and her dad and we were snuggled on the couch watching Survivor together. We’d often do this thing where she’d have me sprawl out and bend my legs a little to create this empty space between myself and the back of the sofa. Then she’d curl her tiny body into that nook there.
    “It’s like I’m in a boat,” she’d said, as though the carpet was water and I had to keep her from spilling over into it. It reminded me of a game Hattie and I used to play as kids that we’d called “lava.” Everything but the ground was safe and we’d hop from table to chair to ottoman to avoid falling into the molten and fiery floor below. Mom would get annoyed when she’d come home to find us on the kitchen counters or wedged in the doorway with our feet and hands propped against the frame.
    “Why do you call it a boat?” I’d asked Mallory. My mouth was close to her temple and I’d pressed it softly there.
    “Because I feel safe here. Like you’re my calm place in rough waters.”
    “You don’t feel safe when I’m not around?”
    She lifted her chin to look me in the eyes. “No, not unsafe, really. Just uncertain,” she’d said. “But I’m certain of you, and that makes me feel safe.”
    Later that night Mallory led me down the hall. We were headed toward her dad’s den, and though I’d always wanted to know what he did in that room, I knew enough to wait until I was invited along.
    “Want to see something?”
    I nodded.
    “Hey, Tommy.” She’d dropped a few light knocks on the door as she spoke. “Care for a couple visitors?”
    Then she propped open the door to let me through. It was dark and musty. I could make out a wall with a large bookcase at the back of the room, and I studied it. There were hundreds of books, all haphazardly thrown onto their shelves. Some were upright. Others lay sideways. Some looked like they’d been tossed against the case and stayed where they fell. There was a small loveseat off to the side and it was covered in a deep red brocade fabric, the floral, swirling pattern interrupted with tears and snags.
    “Go sit over there and I’ll see if he’s got everything he needs.”
    I did as instructed and slumped onto the seat with a huff. The springs in the cushions were old and I could feel every individual coil. There was a lamp to my right that looked like it was made from stained glass and I wanted to flick it on, but I decided to wait on Mallory. She’d turn it on if it was necessary. It seemed like she had a routine in here.
    “Oh, Tommy,” she said, bending to the ground to retrieve a paint tube. “You should’ve told me to buy more goldenrod. I was just by the store today.” The way you do when you squeeze the last bit of toothpaste out of the tube, she rolled the paint between her fingers and a dollop fell out and onto Tommy’s pallet. “There, that’s all that you’ve got to work with tonight.”
    The floor was speckled in every color of paint one could imagine, and there were stacks of canvases lining the walls the way music stores organized their albums and records to flip through. There must’ve been at least a hundred judging by the ten piles I counted along the wall.
    Mallory came over and sat next to me. I wasn’t a guy with a particularly long attention span—I’d been known to sleep through movies and lectures and church sermons—but I swore I could’ve watched Mallory’s dad paint all night. The limited movement I was accustomed to seeing from him disappeared altogether. His hand swept across the canvas as though he was a conductor, the paints his orchestra. I almost wanted to close my eyes to take in the concert in front of me.
    “Before the stroke, he was right handed,” Mallory whispered after an hour or more of silence. “Now he does everything with the left. The doctor says he should be able to speak, too, but he doesn’t try. I