Asher pressed his lips into a firm line. She had a point. “Just hurry up, okay?”
She finished taping up the bottom of one cardboard box, handed it to him, and started assembling another.
“It won’t take me long to pack up the bedroom and bathroom, if you want to do the kitchen. Don’t worry about the dishes and glasses—I’ll do those—but everything else is fair game.”
Reluctantly, he let the outside door shut behind him and he got to work. Conry was stationed at the bottom of the stairs outside to alert them if something was wrong. He hoped that was enough.
Olivia was right. It didn’t take her long to pack. After carrying the boxes out to the van, they starting packing up the living room.
Asher wrapped her collection of candles. They smelled like the herbal oil she used in the bath. He wondered if her mother had made them.
“It drives my mother crazy that I don’t put down any roots,” she said, as if she knew what he’d been thinking. “But at least she understands.”
“How often do you see her?”#p#分页标题#e#
“Every few months, I guess. But I call her a lot. When I visit, I go at night, so that none of her neighbors know. A few years ago, when I went off the radar and stopped reporting to the army once a year for testing, they questioned all the people on her street and asked if they’d seen me recently. God knows they got nothing out of my mother.”
“Is this your dad and brother?” he asked, picking up a framed photograph from the coffee table.
“Yeah, it was taken on the last camping trip we took. We used to go every summer.”
“You look a lot like your brother,” he said. Vince had a mop of reddish brown hair the same color as Olivia’s and they had the same smile.
“I wonder if I still do. That is, if he’s still alive somewhere.”
Asher placed the photograph in the box and continued packing. “I’ve heard that twins have a special bond.”
“It’s true,” she said. “I used to know what he was going to say before he even started talking. Drove our teachers crazy. So much so that after the third grade, we were always assigned different classrooms.” Her voice got quiet. “Which is why I still think he could be alive somewhere. I’m pretty sure I would know if he wasn’t.”
Asher lifted a picture from the wall, a pencil drawing of a young woman. Her head was turned away and behind her in the distance was a craggy mountain covered with trees.
“Is this one of Vince’s?” he asked, remembering that her brother was a talented artist.
Olivia pointed throughout the room. “He did all of them.”
He felt guilty for thinking she could just walk away from her belongings. These were memories she could never get back. Aside from Conry, there was nothing he owned that had any sentimental value. He was used to traveling light. Going back and forth through the portals forced you to depend on nothing but yourself. “They’re amazing,” he said. “Is this the woman you said he drew a lot?”
“He must’ve done forty or fifty of them. When I left home, I took a few of my favorites and had them framed.”
“How old was he when he drew this?” He held it up for her to see.
“Hmmm. Since that one’s not dated, he was probably fifteen or so. He only started dating his pictures when he got a little older.”
As she worked on the hall closet, he cleared off the table, carefully wrapping her collection of whimsical colored porcelain pigs and placing them in the box. It occurred to him that she’d enjoy shopping in Greenway, an open-air market on his side of the portal. Greenway was home to many local artists and—
He needed to stop thinking that he had a future with Olivia and remember what had happened Jenny. They’d be parting ways tomorrow, which was the right thing to do. He’d get her situated at Rand’s, then go to meet the other Iron Guild warriors at the rendezvous point.
The next framed drawing was hanging by the window. He peered through the blinds and saw Conry sitting patiently at the base of the stairs. The parking lot was still quiet.
He grabbed the picture off the wall and started to reach for more packing material, when something about the drawing caught his attention. He took a closer look. He blinked a few times and took a step backward, but his boot caught the leg of the coffee table. Trying to keep from dropping the picture, he cradled it to his chest as he crashed to the ground, landing on his ass with hard thump. The corner of the black frame hit the coffee table and the glass shattered.
“Asher?” Olivia called from the other room. “Are you okay?”
He could barely breathe.