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When I get home, I leave the bags of soil in the car and head

into the house. After I take a shower, I do what I’ve been

dreading. I’ve put off searching Mina’s room for too long.

If Trev won’t answer my calls, I’ll have to trick him. But

that means I have to wait until my Dad’s home so I can use

his phone. So I force myself to grab a cardboard box and

go upstairs to my room to start fi lling it with her things.

They’re my ticket inside the house.

Through the years, her clothes and jewelry had mixed

94

F A R F R O M Y O U

with mine. I have the folders full of newspaper clippings

and printouts of online articles that she’d page through

while we’d lie on my bed, listening to music. Books, mov-

ies, earrings, makeup, and perfume, they all mingled until

they weren’t mine or hers anymore. Just ours.

Everywhere I look, there she is. I can’t escape her if I try.

I take my time choosing what to put in the box, knowing

that Trev will thumb through every book, every article, as

if they hold some deeper meaning, a message to comfort

him. He’ll place her jewelry back in the big red velvet box

on her dresser, and the clothes back in her closet, never to

be worn again.

I’m sliding the last book into the box when I hear my

Dad open the front door.

I go downstairs. “Good day?” I ask.

He smiles at me. “Yeah, honey, it was okay. Did you stay

here the rest of the day?”

“I went to the nursery and got some more soil. And

some daisies.”

“I’m glad you’re still gardening,” Dad says. “It’s good for

you to be out in the sun.”

“I was gonna call Mom and see what she wanted to do

for dinner, but my phone’s charging upstairs. Can I borrow

yours?”

“Sure.” He digs in his the pocket of his charcoal trou-

sers, coming up with it.

“Thanks.”

I wait until he’s disappeared into the kitchen before

going out onto the front porch. I call my mom fi rst, just so

T E S S S H A R P E

95

I’m not lying, but it goes to voicemail. She’s probably in a

meeting.

I punch in Trev’s number.

“It’s Sophie,” I say quickly when he answers. “Please

don’t hang up.”

There’s a pause, then a sigh. “What is it?”

“I have some of her things. I thought maybe you’d want

them. I can bring them by.”

Another long pause. “Give me a while,” he says. “Around

six?”

“I’ll be there.”

“See you then.”

After I hang up, I get antsy. I can’t go back inside. I can’t

just sit upstairs, next to the scraps of her I’ve dumped in a

box. I go round back to my garden, because it’s the only

distraction I have left.

Dad’s pulled the bags of soil out of the car and lined

them up next to the beds for me already. I wave at him from

the yard, and he waves back from the kitchen, where he’s

peeling potatoes for dinner.

I collapse in an awkward heap on the ground, reach out,

and dig through the soil of the last neglected bed, rooting

out stones and throwing them hard over my shoulder. The

summer sun pounds down, and sweat collects at the small

of my back as I work. Bent at this angle, my leg is killing

me, but I ignore the pain.

I tear open a bag of soil and heft it over the edge of the

wood, spilling new dirt into the bed. I dig my hands into the

moist soil over and over, letting it fi lter between my fi ngers,

96

F A R F R O M Y O U

the rich smell a little bit like coming home. I mix it deeper

and deeper into the bed, turning up the bottom soil, com-

bining old and new. The tip of my fi nger brushes against

something smooth and metallic, buried deep. I grasp it and

pull a tarnished, muddy silver circle out of the ground.

Astonished, I lay the ring on the fl at of my palm, brush-

ing off the dirt.

It’s hers. I remember she thought she’d lost it at the

lake last summer. Mine is in my jewelry box, locked away,

because it doesn’t mean anything without its match.

I curl my fi ngers around the ring so tightly, I’m surprised

the word stamped into the silver doesn’t carve its way into

me the way she did.

20

THREE AND A HALF YEARS AGO (FOURTEEN YEARS OLD)

“Get up.”

I pull the covers over my head. “Leave me alone,” I moan.

I’ve been home from the hospital for a week and I haven’t left my

bedroom. I’ve barely left my bed, the walker just another reminder of

how much everything sucks. All I do is watch TV and take the cocktail

of pain pills the doctors keep giving me, which leaves me so fuzzy, I

don’t want to do anything, anyway.

“Get
up
.” Mina yanks at my blankets, and I can’t fi ght her with just

one hand, my other still in a cast.

“You’re mean,” I tell her, rolling slowly over to my other side,

smashing my extra pillow over my head instead. The eff ort it takes

just to roll over makes me groan. Even with the pills, everything hurts,

whether I’m still or moving.

Mina plops down on the bed next to me, not bothering to be

gentle. Her weight jostles the mattress, making me rock back and

forth. I wince. “Stop it.”

“Get out of bed, then,” she says.

“I don’t want to.”

“Too bad. Your mom says you won’t leave your room. And when

your mom starts calling
me
for help, I know there’s a problem. So—

up! You reek. You need to shower.”

98

F A R F R O M Y O U

“No,” I groan, smashing the pillow into my face. I have to use

that stupid shower chair for old people with bad hips. Mom’s hovered

outside the door each time, basically worrying herself into a fi t about

whether or not I’ll fall. “Just leave me alone.”

“Yeah, right, that’s
really
gonna work on me.” Mina rolls her eyes.

I still have the pillow pulled over my head, so I feel, rather than

see, her get up off the bed. I hear the sound of water being turned on.

For a second I think she’s turned the shower on in the bathroom, but

then the pillow I’m holding is yanked out of my hands and, when I

open my mouth to protest, Mina dumps a glass of cold water over my

head. I shriek, jerking up way too fast, and it hurts, oh shit,
it hurts
.

I’m still not used to how I can’t twist and move my spine like I used to.

But I’m so angry at her that I don’t care. I push up on the bed with my

good arm, grab the remaining pillow, and hurl it at her.

Mina giggles, delighted, dancing out of the way and then back,

tilting the empty glass in her hand teasingly at me.

“Bitch,” I say, yanking my dripping hair out of my eyes.

“You can call me whatever you want, smelly, as long as you

shower,” Mina says. “Come on, get up.”

She holds her hand out, and it’s not like anyone else who’s off ered

themselves to me as a temporary cane. Not like Dad, who wants to

carry me everywhere. Not like Mom, who wants to wrap me in cot-

ton and never let me go anywhere again. Not like Trev, who wants so

desperately to fi x me.

She holds her hand out, and when I don’t take it immediately, she

snaps her fi ngers at me, pushy, impatient.

Just like always.

I fold my hand in hers, and when she smiles, it’s sweet and soft and

full of the relief that can only come aft er a lot of worry.

21

NOW (JUNE)

The Bishop house has pink shutters and white trim and an

apple tree’s been growing tall in the front yard for as long

as I can remember. I walk up the porch stairs carefully,

the rail taking most of my weight as I balance the box on

my hip.

Trev opens the door before I can knock, and for a second

I think my plan will fail, that he won’t invite me in.

But then he steps aside, and I walk into the house.

It’s strange to feel unwelcome here. I’ve spent half of my

life in this house and know every nook and cranny: where

the junk drawer is, where the spare Oreos are stashed,

where to fi nd the extra towels.

And all of Mina’s hiding places.

“Are you okay?” Trev’s eyes linger on the way I’m favor-

ing my good leg. “Here.” He takes the box from me and

forgets himself for a second, reaching back for my arm.

He remembers at the last moment and stops, snatching

his hand away. He rubs it over his mouth, and then looks

over his shoulder into the living room. “You want to sit?” he

asks, the reluctance in his words ringing through the room.

“Actually, can I use your bathroom fi rst?”

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F A R F R O M Y O U

“Sure. You know where it is.”

Like I’d expected, his attention’s already fi xed on the box

of Mina’s things. He disappears into the living room and

I go down the hall. I pause at the bathroom door, opening

and closing it for effect, and tiptoe through the kitchen to

the only bedroom on the ground fl oor. Mina had liked it

that way. She’d always been restless at night, writing until

dawn, researching late into the night, baking cookies at

midnight, throwing rocks at my window at three A.M., lur-

ing me out for mini road trips to the lake.

Her door’s closed, and I hesitate, worried about the

sound. But it’s my only chance, so I grab the knob and

slowly turn it. The door opens and I slip inside.

When I thought up this plan, I worried that I might

make it all the way here, only to fi nd all her things boxed

up or gone already.

But it’s worse: everything is the same. From the lavender

walls to that girly canopy bed she’d begged for when she

was twelve. Her cleats are next to her desk, stacked haphaz-

ardly across each other, as if she’s just toed them off.

The room hasn’t been touched. Mina’s bed’s still unmade,

I realize with a horrible swoop of my stomach. I stare at the

rumpled sheets, the indentation in the pillow, and I have

to stop myself from pressing my hand into where her head

had rested, trailing my fi ngers through sheets frozen in the

curled shape of her last peaceful night.

I have to hurry. I drop to the fl oor and crawl on my

stomach under the bed, my fi ngers scrabbling for the loose

fl oorboard. My nails catch at the wood and I lift it up and

T E S S S H A R P E

101

away, pulling myself farther beneath the steel framework.

My fi ngers search below the fl oor, past some cobwebs,

but I don’t feel anything hidden in the nook. I dig my phone

out of my pocket and shine it down into the space under

the fl oorboards.

There’s an envelope tucked in the corner underneath a

loose board way in the back. I reach down in the gap of

space to grab it, crumpling the paper in my hurry. I’m put-

ting the fl oorboard back when I hear Trev call my name

from the hallway.

Shit.
I snap the board into place and push myself out

from underneath the bed. I have to bite hard down on my

lip when my leg twists the wrong way getting up and pain

stabs down my knee. I want to lean against the bed for a

second, deal with the pain, but I don’t have the time. Breath-

ing fast, I shove the envelope in my bag without opening it.

“Soph? You okay?” Trev’s knocking on the bathroom

door.