Page 62 of Fragments of the Lost
Max’s house feels warm and welcoming, even as I’m shivering in someone else’s clothes. I’ve followed him back here, after we separated. After he pulled back and said, his forehead still resting against mine,You’re going to get hypothermia, seriously,and we walked back to our cars together, like nothing at all had happened.
The front door leads to the kitchen and the living room together, the only parts of the house I’ve seen before. There are family photos on the beige walls; Max is an only child, so it’s all him, except for a photo from his parents’ wedding.
My living room is like this too, covered with images of me and Julian, and in that one moment I realize what’s missing from Caleb’s. There are no pictures of him when he’s younger on the walls of his house. There are pictures of Mia, and Caleb with Mia, both not until he’s older.
“Eve doesn’t have pictures of Caleb growing up,” I say. “Downstairs.”
But Max frowns, turning back to the fridge to scrounge for food, and I realize my mistake. I know what he’s thinking: everything I say, everything I see, is in comparison to Caleb.
Max: taller, leaner. His kisses more tentative, unsure. My first thought down on the riverbank, when he finally lowered his lips to mine, was frustration that he was pulling away and stepping back, until something tipped and he pulled me closer, our clothes cold and clinging to our skin, my body trembling against his. Everything natural and easy from there, where Caleb was all anticipation and surprise; it was as if I’d known Max forever, and this was the way it was meant to be.
I wonder if it was just the moment, two people missing the same thing, seeking comfort in each other. If now that we’re back in his kitchen and reality, he will say something likeListen, Jessa—
Things that felt possible an hour earlier seem suddenly overexposed in the reality of our lives. He looks like he wants to say something, like he’s on the cusp, but instead he looks me over again. “You’re still shaking,” he says.
Our clothes are in the dryer, and Max has changed into something warmer. Meanwhile, I’m wrapped in Max’s sweatshirt, and a pair of his mom’s pajama pants. Still, the chill lingers.
“I’m freezing. It seemed like a better idea an hour ago.”
He cracks a grin, and a laugh slips through. Then he bites it back, as if remembering why we are here. “About earlier,” he starts, and I lean forward. Earlier, as in when I kissed him, and he kissed me back? Earlier, as in when I threw myself into the river and he followed? Earlier, as in when I told him that Caleb might not be dead and he started to believe me?
But before he can continue, there’s a sharp noise from the back of his house, like a waiter dropping a tray of dishes.
I jump, on edge, while Max walks to the living room windows, peering through the blinds. “My neighbor,” he says. “Dumping the trash. It’s garbage day tomorrow. We keep the containers in the alleys behind our houses until garbage day, when we drag them around to the front.”
I stand beside Max. The neighbor doesn’t see us. She heaves another bag into the bin beside it. The bottles crash against one another as she drops her recycling inside.
My gaze shifts to the house over the fence, and I know Max is doing the same.
Just like that, we know what we have to do. I see him staring out the back window, to the high wooden fence.
“They’re gone,” he says.
“How can you tell?”
He points to the window of the garage, the shades pulled closed. “The garage light is always on when they’re home now.” There’s only darkness behind the shades now.
“Always?”
He shrugs. “Seems that way to me.”
“That sounds like a really inexact science.”
He turns to face me. “I want you to show me, Jessa. Show me the room. The hidden attic space behind his closet. The things that made you think he’s alive.”
And of course I must, we must. You can’t put a thing like that out into the world and expect it to dissipate in the air. It has substance now. I’ve sucked him in, and now I have to prove my theory: that there were parts to Caleb that neither of us saw. Something neither of us knew. Secrets lingering just underneath the surface, hidden in plain sight.
I have a key now, I realize. The one that somehow ended up in the attic space. I can get in his house on my own. Undetected.
But I don’t fully trust Max’s surveillance techniques, which is why we end up waiting for the dryer to finish, and then check the house on foot first, walking around the block, looking for Eve’s car.
“I told you,” he says. But I am not one who can accept what I am told without question any longer.
Max watches the street as I slide the key into the lock, and I imagine Caleb standing in my place. The lock turns, and the feeling reverberates through the metal, into my bones.
“Hello?” I call as I push the door open, but Max grabs my arm suddenly, and I fall silent.
“Just listen,” he whispers. So I do: the grandfather clock, counting the seconds; the hum of the refrigerator; our steps that seem to echo louder on the hardwood floor in the entrance. The house feels so different without the area rugs under the furniture, and the artwork off the walls. All that remains are the hard surfaces of the floors and walls, with a smattering of furniture.
