She frowned. « What? »
« The box. You packed it. You should open it. »
« Naomi, I don’t have time for— »
« Open it, » I said again, and I didn’t raise my voice, but something in the way I said it made my father set his coffee mug down on the hall table.
Derek glanced between us. « What’s going on? »
My mother’s jaw tightened. She was not a woman who liked being told what to do in her own hallway, especially in front of her son. But she also wasn’t a woman who could stand looking like she had something to hide. So she set the box on the little bench by the door, pulled at the tape with her fingernails, and ripped it open.
I watched her face.
I had imagined this moment every night that week, lying awake in a bedroom that no longer felt like mine. I had imagined anger. I had imagined her yelling. I had even, in weaker moments, imagined her crying and pulling me into a hug and saying she hadn’t meant any of it.
What I hadn’t imagined was how quiet it would be.
Because the box she had packed with my sweaters and my books and my framed college diploma was no longer full of those things.
