Projecting

I told her everything, in a whisper, standing between the trash cans with my mother's ruined photograph between us. Dana's face went through several things I didn't have names for yet, and settled on something hard.

She brought it to my dad that same night, quietly, in the kitchen, laying the torn photo on the counter like evidence.

"She took this from Lucy, Peter. And threw it away."

My dad picked it up, turned it over, and I watched him want, very badly, for there to be an explanation that didn't require him to change anything about his life. Bianca gave him one before he even had to ask for it.

"I found it in her room and I was going to reframe it for her as a surprise," Bianca said smoothly, appearing in the doorway like she'd been listening the whole time. "It must have fallen in the trash by accident when I was clearing space on her dresser."

"That's not what happened," I said, but my voice came out smaller than I wanted it to.

"Dana," Dad said, and there was an apology already forming in how he said her name, "I know you're still grieving Marissa too. I think maybe you're seeing something that isn't quite there."

Dana didn't argue with him that night. She just looked at me for a long moment, the way you look at someone you're making a promise to without saying it out loud, and told me she'd see me soon.

She didn't go home. She went to the storage unit where my mom's old things had been sitting untouched for over a year, and she started going through boxes she hadn't had the heart to open until now.