the basement

Mom thumps down the stairs and hurries past my bedroom. “I’ll get it,” she calls out, like it’s normal for her to get any door. She’s moving fast. How is she going so fast in our house?

“Who is it?” I hiss at Steph.

“Josh,” she says. “He’s coming in.”

I yell out, “Tell him I’m sleeping.”

“I don’t think so,” Steph says.

“What’s going on?” I say.

Her jaw is fixed. “You’re getting dressed, that’s what’s happening.”

The back door is opening. Crap.

“Oh hi, Josh.” Mom is all bright and cheery. “Come on in. She’s in her room with Steph.”

Come on in? As if we are a normal family. As if people walk into our house all the time. As if he’s ever been inside.

My old instincts kick in and I yell out, “No!” Oh my god. Josh is coming into my house. He’s going to see how we live.

“Just go into her room,” Mom says, in a loud voice, as if she doesn’t hear.

“No, wait,” I scream. “I’m naked. I have to get dressed.” I jump out of bed, feel dizzy from standing up so quickly, and I grip Steph’s arm. “I’m going to kill you,” I say to her, and then it hits me, what I’ve just said. “Oh.”

“Come on, J,” she says, lightly. “It’s okay.”

Josh and Mom are talking. I wait for her to excuse the mess, claim it’s temporary, say we’re getting ready for a garage sale, but she says nothing. Maybe he’s by the back steps and sound is traveling.

I pick up the cutoffs, which are now on the floor, and pull them over my underwear. They slide down my hips. I run a hand through my greasy hair. I haven’t had a shower since graduation. It’s pretty nasty. I put on a bra and my T-shirt, and I stumble out of my bedroom, intending to create a human wall between Josh and my house.

I let out one of my horror-movie gasps.

The piles are gone. The concrete floor is clear. The coffee table gleams. The old brown sofa has two new pretty cushions, white with red flowers. The rug with the triangle pattern, which I haven’t seen in its entirety for ages, has been shaken out, maybe even vacuumed. How did I miss the sound of a vacuum?

The pictures on the walls are straight. There are two watercolors my mom did when she was younger as well as the posters of van Gogh’s Haystacks and Monet’s Water Lilies.

On top of the washing machine, a laundry basket is full of my own clean, folded clothing. And there’s the extra remote! It’s placed neatly, next to the TV.

Mom’s clenching her hands at the sides of her long white shirt, in anticipation, and Steph has a grin on her face. Josh never saw my house before, but he seems to be getting it.

“Holy shit,” I say.

Steph laughs. “Your mom and I have been working on this for the last week. This is what I wanted to show you.”

Mom smiles. Remember how you said that her eyes were green, just like mine, only dulled with sadness? Today her eyes are bright emeralds.

“I found a new therapist,” she said. “It’s helping.”

“I didn’t know you were leaving the house,” I say, looking around. “How come I didn’t see this?”

“We just finished the hallway.”

I shake my head. “Wow.”

“Your mom did most of it,” Steph says.

They share a look. I remember how Steph used to love coming over and baking with my mom back when the house was just messy, not crazy-person messy. She used to be jealous of my mom, if you can believe it.

I rub my eyes. Feel like I’ve awoken from a hundred-year sleep and everything has changed. “Upstairs?” I ask Mom.

She makes a face. “Got rid of those garbage bags. Didn’t even look in them. Steph took them to Sally Ann’s. But the rest—” She sighs.

It would take a day for the mess to make its way downstairs.

“Could you and Steph help me?” she asks.

Whoa. That’s new. “I can get rid of stuff?” I say.

“Anything you want. I’ll close my eyes.”

“No fights?”

“Promise. I want upstairs to look like this.”

Josh is looking between my mom and me, as if he doesn’t know what to do with my crazy-ass family. His hair is cut. It looks like maybe he’s slept, but he’s still too skinny, and his eyes are so sad.

“Well,” Mom declares, like a normal person, “I’ll leave you kids alone.” She heads down the hall toward the stairs.

“Mom?” I say.

She looks back, her hand on the doorknob to the stairwell.

“Thanks.”

“Sure, honey.” Then she hobbles back, wraps her thick arms around me, and kisses me on the cheek. I don’t think she’s kissed me for years. “I’m glad you’re up.” It’s another normal mom moment. Then she heads upstairs.

Josh opens his arms and raises his eyebrows, hopeful. I step forward and hug his warm, thin body. Steph and I gaze at each other over his shoulder. I didn’t know how worried she was about me until this moment. I take in my spotless basement and think about all the hours she must have spent, cleaning it with my mom. I wave her into our hug and she lets out one of her snort-laughs and wraps her arms around us.

Finally, we all step back and look at one another in this weirdly clean space. For once, three people can all sit on the sofa together. And it actually smells better, like roses, due to one of those air freshener thingies you plug in the wall.

“I got something to show you,” Josh says, “when you’re ready.”

“Oh yeah?” That sounds serious. “I’m ready.”

Steph squints at me, like she’s worried. “Jessie—”

I glare. “You can’t just say something like that and not show me. Yeah, I’m ready. Hit me with it.”

“You need to sit down,” she says.

I sit. Josh drops down on one side of me, and Steph drops down on the other. Josh slides something skinny and black out of his pocket.

It’s your phone. Your initials on the back of the case. Just like I ordered.

“His mom gave me this to give you.” Josh licks his lips and sniffs. And then he breaks the news. “It has a message for you.”

My breath pauses halfway into my chest.

“Are you sure you’re ready to read it?”

I gaze into his watery blue eyes. “I’m okay now.” My voice is odd. Definitely, I don’t sound okay. “I need to see it.”

He hands it over. Its surface feels cool in my hand.

I press my fingerprint to open it. My fingerprint still works. My stomach tightens. I haven’t even seen the damn message and I want to wail over this one fact. You didn’t erase my fingerprint.

“It’s in the notes,” he says.

I open it. Your message pops up on the screen.

The period at the end of your name. It’s so final. You always did that, wrote a period. The date on the note is last Friday. Forever? What does forever mean when you’re dead?

A sob builds inside of me and Josh wraps his arm around me and I bury my face in his shoulder. It’s different when you know, like, absolutely and for sure, when you hear a good-bye from your boyfriend, in the only way he would say it.

Josh is sobbing so hard, he’s shaking, and Steph is there too, rubbing my back, and then we’re all crying together, clinging to one another like buoys in the middle of a rocky ocean, until the sobs turn to sniffs and then the only thing we can hear is our slow, steady breathing, inhaling and exhaling, together.