Page 78 of The Fix-Up

“Not for too long. It’s past bedtime,” I called. But I wasn’t too worried. Oliver had all week off for spring break, so staying up a little later wouldn’t hurt too much.

I headed to my bedroom to gather some clothes for the wash. But then I saw it. There at the end of the hallway, the door to Ollie’s room was open.

I froze, my stomach flipped. Gil wouldn’t have, would he? But there was the evidence as clear as day. Hands curled intofists, I stormed down the hallway and burst into the room. “What are you doing in here?”

Gil sat on the bed, staring down at a picture frame. He glanced up at me and back down without saying anything.

I stomped over to him. “Excuse me. I thought we were going to do this together.”

“I got tired of waiting,” he mumbled, his eyes never leaving the picture.

“I cannot believe you. You knew how I felt about this.” I waved an arm around the room. Ollie’s room.

Slowly, I turned in a circle to take everything in. The first thing of note: this room was clean, neat, organized. Not at all like the rest of the house had been when we moved in. Soft blue paint covered the walls and a wallpaper border with alternating ships and whales wrapped around the room. A long chest of drawers, a dresser, two nightstands, a small file cabinet next to a desk, wood floors that looked worn but cared for. Overall, a very normal room. Except for the picture frames resting on every available surface and wall space. I’d never seen so many photographs displayed in one place at a time.

“Whoa. This is not what I expected.” When he didn’t reply, I whirled back to him. He looked pale, his expression almost sad. “Hey, are you okay? I’m trying to yell at you, and you look like someone stole your lunch.”

Slowly, he turned the picture frame around to reveal a skinny, dark-haired boy standing on a boat dock wearing a pair of blue swim trunks and a huge smile and holding a fish dangling from his hand with a line.

“This is me. I was eight here,” Gil said. “It was taken when my stepdad took me fishing for the first time.”

“Oh.” I sat next to him on the bed and took the frame from him and studied it. Little Boy Gil had gangly arms, knobby, skinned-up knees, and eyeglasses a touch too big for his face.

Gil picked up another photo from a small pile on the other side of him. “This was when I won the school spelling bee in seventh grade. That’s my mom.” His fingers traced the boy in the photo holding up a ribbon that said first place. Standing next to him was a pretty dark-haired woman with smiling blue eyes. Gil had her eyes. “I remember the exact moment this photo was taken.”

“What was the winning word?”

“Silhouette.” He huffed a laugh. “It wasn’t even a word I’d studied. But my mom loved to read those Harlequin Silhouette books and that’s how I knew it.” The amusement drained from his face. “She died two days later in a car accident.”

My heart screeched to a halt. “Oh, Gil. I’m so sorry.”

“It was a long time ago.”

“I don’t think that’s something you ever get over.”

He set the photo aside. “I was lucky. I had my stepdad. He never made me feel unwanted, even though I wasn’t related to him by blood. And I was a little shit for a while there. I pushed every button he had. He was a good man.”

“Sounds like it.”

“He would have liked you.” Before I even had a moment to process this, he picked up another photo. “My mom and stepdad’s wedding.” And another. “My mom’s high school graduation.” And yet another. “My high school graduation.”

I grabbed that last picture from him and studied it. The teenage boy in the photo was still growing into his body, but the bones were there. Tall, lanky, with wide shoulders. A cocky expression. He wasn’t smiling; he was smirking.

I grinned. “You had long hair?”

He snatched the frame back. “It was a phase.”

“That is alook. Please tell me you were in a garage band.”

His cheeks pinked up. “No.”

“No, you weren’t?”

“No, I’m not telling you.”

I bounced on the bed. “Tell me your band name. Please tell me.”

“No.”

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