Of course not. I vaguely remember that, too. One summer, when I was twelve or so, I’d come home for a change of clothes and there were people at the house, strange people in pant suits who asked a lot of questions. My father had stared meaningfully at me, and I’d answered them all like I know he’d want me to.

Kids are loyal to the end.

Well guess what? It’s the end.

I grip the box hard, staring at it’s intricate design, at the way it so cleverly conceals it’s contents. Hard and fast, I throw it across the room. It shatters against the wall, splintering into pieces on the floor.

I don’t make a move to walk to it, to see what’s inside.

Jacey stares first at it, then at me.

“I don’t know what happened to your sister,” she says softly. “But I do know that whatever it was, it wasn’t your fault.”

I can’t help it. It all wells up in me and I sink to the floor and sit limply, and all of it comes out. All of it.

My sister sleepwalking. The way we had to keep her locked in for her own safety. How my mother had found her washed up on the shore and how her screams had shaken the house. How my father had beat me every night when he came home from the bar. Ring the bell, Brand. How he had swung at me when I graduated high school and how then it was my turn to beat him. How I’d punched him and punched him until my mother pulled me off and called the police. How the judge had suspended my sentence when he heard I’d been accepted to West Point, but only if I’d agree to enter the military afterward. How that was okay with me, because it’s had been my plan anyway. And how my mother hates me now.

All of it comes out.

All of it.

Jacey holds my hand and tears stream down her face as she listens to me rail and vent and swear. Years of disgust and bitterness flow out of me, all of it.

All.

Of.

It.

Even the parts that are directed at her.

“You used me for years,” I tell her angrily. “And I let you. That’s on me. Because I always thought I wasn’t good enough.. it’s something that’s embedded deep down--- so I always felt like that’s what I deserved. To take and take and take. Well you know what? Fuck that. I don’t deserve that.”

Jacey grips my hand tighter.

“No, you don’t deserve that, Brand. And you were always good enough. Always. I was the one who wasn’t good enough for you. Your dad was asshole. Your mother is just as bad. They fucked you up, but you’re stronger than they are. You are. You’re good and strong and loyal… and you were more of a man when you were six than your father was ever. You have to know that, Brand. You have to.”

I’m finally done railing. I’m limp and tired and exhausted.

I nod. “Yeah. I do know that. I’ve spent my entire life trying to be good enough. I think it’s time that I just… that I just am.”

Jacey nods and holds me and I close my eyes for just a minute.

“I didn’t deserve for Nora to leave in the middle of the night without even a conversation. Fuck her.”

My eyes pop open and Jacey is watching me, her face pale.

“I’m going to shower,” I tell her as I get up. And I walk away.

A minute later, though, Jacey calls me.

I hesitate at my bedroom door.

“Yes?” I call back.

“I looked in the box.”

Her words are simple, her tone calm.

Suddenly, I want to know. What the fuck did my father have to say? What could he possibly have to say to me?

I stride back to the living room and find Jacey standing over the shattered remains of the box. She turns to look at me, her face pale, her eyes huge.

There, dangling from her fingers, is the old sliding lock from my sister’s bedroom door.

The paint is peeling from it, it’s old and it’s rusty, but it’s as familiar to me as my own hand. If I close my eyes, I can still hear the sound it made when it slid into place every night before bed.

If I close my eyes, and imagine the sound, I also know something, something that I’ve purposely not thought about over the years, but something I’ve known since the night my sister died.

I didn’t hear the lock slide into place that night.

It’s something I’ve never told another living soul.

Jacey stares at me.

I stare at the lock.

“I knew my father didn’t lock Allison’s door that night,” I finally say. “I knew. I waited until he left for the bar, and I snuck downstairs for a snack, for some cookies. I meant to lock the door when I went back to bed, but I forgot. I walked right past and I forgot. I laid in bed that night, staring out my window, staring at what I thought was a silver ball floating away in the water.”

I pause, and the silence is pregnant as Jacey waits.

“It wasn’t a ball,” I say starkly. “It was my sister.”

Jacey’s eyes widen a bit more, but she remains silent.

“So all along, my parents were right. I guess that’s why I always felt like I deserved whatever my father gave me,” I admit, my words wooden. “I knew her door wasn’t locked and I forgot to do anything about it. She’s dead and it’s as much my fault as it is anyone’s.”

The guilt, the guilt that I’ve carried my entire life feels like a weight now, a heavy weight, an albatross of iron around my neck.

I glance at Jacey. “So now you know. Everyone has been right all along. I’m just not good enough.”

There are tears streaking down Jacey’s face now and she drops the lock. It makes a heavy thump as it hits the floor and Jacey rushes to me, burying her face in my chest as she cries. But she’s not seeking comfort for once. This time, she’s the one comforting me.

“Brand, you’re amazing. So, so amazing. You were six years old. There’s no way that you could’ve known that your sister would get up that night. It wasn’t your responsibility to make sure that door was locked. It was your parents. People suck because they have to always find someone to blame for bad shit… someone besides themselves. You’ve been carrying this guilt for too long… and it’s not yours to carry. It’s your father’s. And I think… maybe…this was his way of saying that.”

I look down at her and she wipes at her eyes.

“Look.” She points with a shaky hand at the inside of the wooden lid. Inscribed with perfect craftsmanship, the words stand out starkly.

It was me.

“I think he’s finally trying to set you free.”

The silence of the house is huge, reverent.

My father’s guilt is not my burden anymore.

Because it stands a hundred yards away from the house, my father’s woodshop was undamaged in the fire.

This morning, I stand in the doorway, assessing it. Distracting myself from the massive hole that Nora’s absence has left.

She’s gone.

I can’t believe it, and I feel it in every part of me. Every cell in my body is in shock, every molecule screams with the pain.

Fuck it.

I take a few steps inside, picking up half finished pieces of wood. She’s gone because I’m not enough for her. I’m not good enough.

The old feelings of inadequacy slam into me, again and again and I groan, slamming the wood in my hand into a table.

Fuck her.

I begin picking up all of my father’s half-finished projects and taking them across the room, stacking them neatly in a corner. I’ll discard them later. It takes a few loads because my father had tons of projects. But anything to keep my hands busy, anything to keep me from punching a million holes into the wall.

I pause and remember my father puttering around out here for hours on end. I used to hear the saws and be thankful… because it meant he probably wouldn’t go to the bar that night. And if he didn’t go to the bar and get trashed, then I was safe from his wrath. He only beat me when he was drunk.

As I reach for another handful of wood, I catch a glimpse of a red metal box sticking out from under the workbench. Bending, I pull it out, expecting to find tools. But no.