“It took us a long time to sort through her things. We had been putting it off, neither of us willing to do it,” my dad said, taking a sip of his coffee. After his initial hug, he now seemed almost reserved.

I took the lid off the box and looked down into the random treasures from my sister’s room that my parents had collected. I pulled out a ratty, pale pink teddy bear that sat on top. Why in the world would my parents give me Mr. Swizzle? My sister had slept with this ugly thing until she went to high school. And I suspected she hid him under her pillow after that, still holding him while she slept.

“Uh . . . thanks?” I held the bear in my hand, not sure what else to say.

My mother let out a tense laugh. “You don’t remember, do you?” she asked. I frowned.

“I don’t remember what?”

My parents exchanged a wistful look, and my mom shook her head. “Of course you wouldn’t. You were so young. But you picked that out for Jayme when she was a baby, just before we brought her home from the hospital. Your dad took you shopping for a welcome-home gift for her, and you insisted on Mr. Swizzle. Jayme slept with it every night after you gave it to her. When she was in her crib, we’d put it in the corner and she’d stop crying. It worked every single time,” my mother told me, and I stared down at the worn stuffed animal in my hands.

“How did I not know that I was the one to pick it out?” I asked incredulously.

“It’s yours now. I think she’d want you to have it.” Mom wiped at her eyes, and I knew she was getting weepy.

I put the bear down, and my fingers began to hesitantly sift through the remaining items in the box. I realized that my parents had carefully chosen things that they knew would be meaningful to me.

I saw the coral necklace I had helped her pick out when we went to the beach one summer during middle school. We had argued over that particular necklace, but in the end I had let Jayme have it because she was my sister and I loved her more than a stupid piece of jewelry. Jayme had worn it all summer.

I found an old spiral notebook with a ripped cover, and I realized it was our “secret club” notebook. I thumbed through the pages to find my childlike scrawl and Jayme’s crude drawings as we detailed our secret missions and important secrets we didn’t want anyone else to know.

My mother leaned over me and reached into the box. “Do you remember this?” she asked, pulling something out and putting it in my hand.

“I knew she took it! That sneaky brat!” I gasped through a choked laugh. Lying in my palm was the silver locket on a chain my grandmother had given me for Christmas when I was ten. Jayme had pouted all day because she had wanted one, too.

Then two days later it had mysteriously disappeared, and I never saw it again. I had accused Jayme, but she denied it and I had gotten into trouble for insisting my sister was the culprit.

My mother shook her head. “I guess we owe you an apology for not believing you.” She smiled.

“I told you guys she took it! Where was it?” I asked, holding up the locket and attaching it around my neck.

“It was in a box at the back of her closet. I’m guessing she hid it and completely forgot about it. There were old Pokémon cards and chains made from Tootsie Pop wrappers as well,” my dad said.

“I can’t believe her. If she were here, I’d shake her silly,” I muttered. Our conversation died down, and we sat in heavy silence.

I put the lid back on the box and set it down at my feet. “Thanks for this. I appreciate it,” I said sincerely, surprised that they would think to do this for me, given our relationship the last few years.

“Aubrey, I know things have been hard since Jayme died—” my mother began.

“That’s a bit of an understatement, don’t you think?” I threw back at them, not able to keep the vicious spite out of my voice.

My mom bit down on her bottom lip and closed her eyes.

“What your mom is trying to say is we’ve been unfair to you. We haven’t been the parents that you needed us to be. It’s inexcusable and wrong. After Jayme died, we shut down, and in the process we lost not one but both of our daughters,” my dad said, leaning forward.

My eyes began to burn with unshed tears. How long had I thought about them with only resentment and bitterness at emotionally abandoning me when I needed them most?

“You hurt me, badly,” I whispered, staring down at my hands.

I startled at my mother’s hand touching mine. “We know. We were in so much pain, and it was easier to blame you than to accept our own culpability in what happened to Jayme.” I felt the first tears escape down my cheek, and I hurriedly wiped them away.

“But you weren’t wrong. I should have told you what was going on with Jayme. I should have done more to save her.” My voice was broken, and I could barely hear myself over the thudding of my heart.

My dad came to sit beside me, and my mother gripped my hand tightly between hers.

“That’s where we failed you, Aubrey. Because you were a child, too. We should never have put that sort of responsibility on you,” my father said firmly.

“But—” I began, but my mother cut me off.

“No! We were the parents. Not you. We should have seen what was going on with our daughter. That was our responsibility. And it was our guilt and shame that made it impossible for us to see how we were treating the only child we had left. I’m sorry, Aubrey.”

I let out a choked sob and couldn’t hold back the tears any longer.

“Why now? Where did this sudden realization come from?” I demanded, feeling my tears mix with years of anger.

“We were in the kitchen drinking our coffee one Saturday morning and made the decision to go through Jayme’s things. Neither one of us had been able to do it in all the years since she had been gone. But something clicked that Saturday, and we grabbed a few bags and went up to her room,” my dad stated.

“Going through her things brought up the hurt and pain all over again. And as we cried and laughed with each new discovery of who our daughter had been, we realized that we weren’t just missing Jayme, we were missing you, too,” my dad finished softly.

“Then we heard from your school about your suspension from the counseling program, and we knew that all of it was our fault. That we hadn’t been the parents we should have been. That we allowed you to go off to school only months after losing your sister, alone in your grief. We should have helped you, but we didn’t, and we will never be able to forgive ourselves.” My mom’s words were punctuated with her muffled sobs, and we cried together. My mother and me. And our mutual tears began to heal the brokenness inside of me.

Tentatively, my mother wrapped her arm around me, and I let her hug me, unable to hold on to the anger I had felt for so long. I needed this. I needed to feel the love that only my parents had ever been able to give me.

I had been defined by my grief and regret for years. They had weighed me down and pulled me under. It was time to let some of that go.

My dad’s arms came up to encircle both my mother and me, and I felt warm from the inside out.

They held me for a long time, my mother and me continuing to cry and my dad holding us both.

chapter

twenty-nine

aubrey

i felt right.

Perfect, even.

I had made peace with my parents. It was only the first step, but it was an important one. We still had a lot of baggage, but I felt we were finally putting the painful past behind us.

My mother wanted to know about my apartment and my friends. My dad asked about my classes and what the food was like at the commons. I was a junior in college and it was the first time my parents had asked about any of this. But at least they were asking now.