The studio is a brick building with huge windows just on the outskirts of Delaney. It’s two stories. The first story is a kind of common area, with separate work spaces. The second story is where the photography happens. There’s a darkroom and a long stretch of space for shoots and equipment. Background paper, lights, soft boxes, umbrellas, and so much other stuff I can’t even remember the names of—I’ve only been here a handful of times in my life and like I said, I’m no artist. I almost tell Culler about the time I accidentally walked in on one of Maggie’s shoots, but I’m glad I think better of it because it was something naked and bondage-y.

I was fifteen.

When Culler and I let ourselves in, Maggie is in the kitchen area, flipping through a magazine. The place is pretty messy, considering so few people work in it. But it’s artfully messy. Pretentiously messy. Artists work here.

“Have you got the key?” Maggie asks. That’s how she greets us. Maggie is a lithe blond thing. She’s twenty-seven. Her work is about sex and gender and violence. I used to love her photos, loved sneaking looks at them and marveling over all of the ways people can fuck and pose and not look like they’re posing.

“Always so good to see you, Maggie,” Culler says, digging into his pocket. He tosses the key at her. It hits the table, slides off, and lands on the floor at her feet.

“I didn’t know you two were friends,” Maggie says. “Hi, Eddie.”

“Where is everyone?” I ask.

“Rick’s not here, surprise, surprise,” she says. Rick Vance is closest to my dad’s age, maybe a little younger. He had his day, I guess, but now he hardly ever works. He pays for the space just in case. Dad used to say he was waiting for Rick to realize his heart wasn’t in it, but he was fine with Rick paying rent until he did. “And Terra’s shooting upstairs, so you can’t go up there right now, but it doesn’t matter—your dad’s stuff is down here anyway.”

She says this so casually, like it’s nothing. Like I’ll just get what my father left behind and take it to the house, where he’s alive and waiting for me.

Not like he’s dead and this is what’s left of him.

“Jesus, Maggie,” Culler says, and I am so glad he’s here with me for this. “Your humanity astounds me. What do you do, save it for your photos? Oh, wait, it’s not in those either…”

“Oh, fuck off, you digital dork. God, I’m not going to miss you.”

Culler points to me. “Her dad just died.”

“And Eddie should know my loathing of you does not extend to her father or her.”

“You call an unoriginal photographer unoriginal just once,” Culler tells me, “and they never, ever get over it.”

“Uhm, where are his things?” I have no idea what I’ve walked into.

She points behind me. I turn. Against the back wall, underneath the window, is a single, medium-size cardboard box, taped and sealed shut. I don’t know how I keep it together enough to walk over to it. I bite my lip so hard I taste blood. I try to swallow it; I can’t. My legs feel like they’re made of nothing. There has to be more than this.

He wouldn’t just leave us with nothing.

I face her. “Is this it? Did you pack his things?”

“You packed his things?” Culler demands. “What the fuck right of that was yours?”

“I didn’t touch his fucking things. That’s what he left.”

“Where’s the rest of it?”

“There is no rest of it,” Maggie says. “He got rid of it and left that box, which has been sitting there forever.”

I turn to Culler. “When did he get rid of everything?”

He looks totally lost. “I wasn’t here the week he … it had to be then, because the week before that…” He faces Maggie. “When did he get rid of everything?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you know, Maggie? Anything?”

“How hard is it to pick up a box and leave?” She closes her magazine and gets to her feet. “I didn’t touch his fucking things, Jesus. I didn’t pack that box. I don’t know when he got rid of it. I’m leaving. I’ll be gone for an hour, Culler, and if you’re here when I get back—”

Her voice fades out. Culler starts talking, but he sounds so far away, I can’t get a handle on it. I stare at the box and run my hands over the cardboard. Do you know what this means? I want to ask them that. Do you know what this means?

The front door slams shut and it’s quiet.

Maggie’s gone.

She wouldn’t care what it meant.

I press my hands against my eyes and exhale slowly. Culler’s footsteps echo through the room as he walks over to me, stands close. He says my name, but if I move my hands I’ll cry. I don’t want to cry in front of Culler. I want to be cool and unflappable. I want to handle this. I have to handle this. I’m supposed to handle this. Beth sent me down here to handle this.

I am apparently the only person left who can handle this.

“Eddie,” Culler says.

I move away from him and lower my hands and I don’t cry, thank God, but I don’t say anything either. Everything I’m feeling is so beyond anything I could say. When I finally do find the words, they fall out of my mouth, my voice breaking. Stupid and confused.

“So he knew he was going to do it for at least a week,” I say. “So there were a few days where he was at home and he knew he was going to kill himself, which means he had time—”

I stop. I can’t.

“Had time for what?” Culler asks.

“To leave behind something more,” I mumble. “Better.”

Sometimes I feel hunted by my grief. It circles me, stalks me. It’s always in my periphery. Sometimes I can fake it out. Sometimes I make myself go so still, it can’t sense that I’m there anymore and it goes away. I do that right now.

I go so still the thing inside me doesn’t know I’m there anymore.

“Eddie?” Culler asks quietly.

I grab the box, but my hands quit on me, my dead hands, and it slips through my fingers and hits the floor. I hear the unmistakable sound of glass breaking and I start apologizing to no one, trying to pick it up again, but I can’t.

I can’t get my hands to work because they’re too cold.

“Sorry.” I can’t grip the box. “I didn’t—it’s my hands. They’re fucked up—”

“It’s okay.” Culler nudges me aside and picks up the box. “I’ve got it.”

“Okay,” I say. “Thank you.”

He nods and I follow him through the door, outside. We put the box into the back of the station wagon without a word and seeing it there, by itself, makes me almost cry again, but I don’t.

“Why are your hands fucked up?” Culler asks.

It’s an empty and painful moment. It is the kind of moment that has me by the throat, the heart. Culler stands there and watches me and doesn’t say anything.

“It’s a long story,” I finally answer.

“I’ve got the time.”

“I don’t really want to tell it.”

“Well, that’s too bad,” he says.

“Why?”

He smiles ruefully. “Because now the only thing left for me to do is take you home.”