Until You Feel At Home

Chapter Four

Claire

Moving was always an opportunity to do a "spring cleaning" of sorts. She moved into the apartment at the beginning of the school year, and had purged a box or two. One out of four items got tossed into the 'donate' pile. She probably would have done the same as she packed up her room, except every item had a significance to it that she hadn't noticed before. A scarf she wore to the zoo with him. A yearbook from her freshman year, with pictures of school trips he chaperoned. A book of signatures from all the characters they met when he took her to Disney World.

"What about this one?" Jodi asked, holding up a lanyard with faded print. She had made herself comfortable, laying on Claire's bed.

"It's from a concert he took me to."

"What concert? You can't even read it." She scoffed and tossed it into the "Pierce" box.

"Van Halen. We were bored one night and went to the parking lot. We bought them off scalpers."

"I didn't know you liked Van Halen."

Claire shrugged. "I didn't at the time. Neither did he, really. We just liked to spend time together. I wore that lanyard every day of high school after that. It carried my ID and keys and a little bottle of hand sanitizer."

A scoff came from Jodi, and Claire already knew what she meant by it. "Can't say your mom feels the same judging by how quickly she left." Of course, Claire agreed. But Jodi didn't need to say it out loud.

"I'll see her again soon enough. She said she'd come to the funeral."

"But not help you with the planning?"

"He didn't want her to plan it. He wanted me and his son to plan it."

Eric appeared in the doorway, coffee mugs in hand. He held one out to Claire; she was happy to accept the Swiss Miss he prepared, just as she liked it. "Have you found lodging?" he asked.

"There's one AirBNB in the whole town. It's all mine for the next two weeks."

"Are you sure you don't want one of us to go with you? I fear it's not good for your mental health to isolate yourself right now." Eric said with the delicate, soft tone he reserved for when he was talking from a psychologist's point of view.

Claire threw her head back in exasperation. "Don't you guys have rooms of your own to pack?" She pointed at them. "If we lose the security deposit because you two are hovering, I swear I'm gonna venmo request my third." Jodi snorted and snuggled under Claire's blankets.

"I see we're moving from denial, straight into anger." He said, sucking his teeth, diagnosing already. "It's progress, Claire, I'm proud of you." He moved to the bed and had a seat next to Jodi. She was grinning at her two friends bickering.

"Ha-ha, very funny, Dr. Eric. People have to grieve in much worse conditions than I'm in, I will be fine. Besides, I won't be alone. I'll have Brandon with me."

"Ah, yes. The step-brother you've never met." Jodi joked.

"He's not my step-brother. Our parents dated for three months and we've never met."

"So a stranger? That's who you'll have with you?"

"Better than no one, right?" Claire said with a shrug. "He did, though, refuse to have a relationship with his dad. So I find it very odd that he's on the list of people to plan his funeral."

"It sounds like a recipe for disaster." Eric said. "If you need a friend, please call us?"

"Yeah, definitely call us." Jodi seconded. "Eric said he'll get the Skintones to perform at the funeral." Claire snorted. The all-black acapella group at Emerson put on a fantastic show, and one of Eric's solos would definitely improve anyone's mood, but it wasn't the kind of art Earnston could fully appreciate.

"Ignore her." Eric said with an eyeroll.

Claire shook her head and began unpacking her dresser drawers. "You both have a busy summer ahead of you. Internships and master's programs... I'm not going to make you abandon that just to keep me company."

"And what about you?" Jodi asked, sitting up. "What about your career? You don't become a journalist by spending your summer in a town with a population smaller than our graduating class."

"It will just have to be a gap year. People take them all the time. And it's not even a year, it's just a few weeks, maybe a month." Claire held up a plastic flask, reminding them of better days when they'd sneak liquor into college football games. It did not distract them, as she hoped. She tossed it into the donation pile.

"All those reasons," Eric started, "are also reasons why we can accompany you."

Claire took a deep breath and shot daggers at them with her eyes. "I have made up my mind, okay? I want to be alone. I want to focus on Pierce. I want to go to Earnston tomorrow, and experience the town he lived in by myself. I want to get to know Brandon by myself. If I need one of you I will call, okay?!" The alarm on their faces suddenly made her stomach churn with guilt. She blew up. "It's only a few hours away. I promise I'll be fine." She watched as Eric made eye contact with Jodi and jerked his head toward the door.

"We'll give you some space." He said as they both stood. He kissed the side of her head and they both left Claire to her thoughts.

She reached under her bed for her suitcase, flopped it on the bed, and started filling it with clothes from her dresser. Short sleeve shirts for warm days, long sleeve shirts for cool nights, and slippers for freezing cold floors in her spooky rental. She tried to walk herself through her daily routine so she could pack more efficiently. What skincare products should she grab? What hair styling tools could she live without for a couple of weeks? She needed to pack a black outfit for the funeral. She pressed her palms into her eyes until she saw neon kaleidoscopes, and collapsed onto her bed.

Imaginings of weather appropriate funeral-wear faded away, and were replaced with images of him holding his breath while he slammed on the brakes. The blur of the highway through his windshield while the car spun out. She knew the panic she felt when she'd rear ended a pickup truck two years ago at a red light. How was he feeling in those moments? Was he aware that he was close to death? Did his life flash before his eyes? Her heart pounded in her chest, and she wondered if his did too, as it slowed to a stop. She just wanted to close her eyes without picturing his last moments.

Her mother hadn't shared many details about the accident. Claire wasn't even sure how much her mom really knew. She'd occasionally googled Pierce's name to see if she could learn more about what happened. All that she'd found was an article on the accident on I-95 that had resulted in a casualty. She'd found a site she had to pay an arm and a leg to get into that had police scanner footage, but she hadn't found anything mentioning the accident. She wondered if only state troopers were involved.

She felt a tear slide down her cheek as she stared up at the ceiling fan. Oddly enough, she hadn't fallen apart since that afternoon at the restaurant. She'd occasionally felt the weight of his loss, and the elephant sitting on her chest forced out a tear. But no crying onto her pillow.

Her phone buzzed in her back pocket, and she withdrew it to find a text. Caleb. The ex-boyfriend who couldn't seem to stop blurring the lines of their relationship.

Hey Claire. I heard about everything. I don't even know what to say. Do you need anything?

She chuckled to herself. Everyone wanted to help but there was nothing anyone could do. She needed to get this trip over with. She locked her phone and rolled over onto her stomach. She buried her face in her pillows and imagined a herd of sheep she could count. Except the sheep were standing in the middle of the road. And her dad's car was going too fast.