Chapter 21: Move Upstairs

Greg carried the last box up the back stairs on a Saturday in January.

He put it on the kitchen table and wiped his forehead with his sleeve.

"That's everything," he said. "Two boxes of books, a toolbox, and the coffee maker."

"You have forty granola bars in the pantry."

"Those are essential."

My father had gone home the week before with a promise to come back at Easter, and a photo of Tilly folded in his wallet.

Tilly lay on her play mat in the sunlight, kicking at the toy giraffe Greg had hung over her.

She was three months old and she had her own opinions.

I opened the box marked *bedroom* and found it full of baby socks.

Small ones, tiny ones, in every color, each pair with the tag still on.

I held one pair in my hand.

Greg had stopped moving.

"I didn't know where they should go," he said. "I can leave them in the closet."

I walked down the hall to Tilly's room and opened the top drawer of her dresser.

I laid the socks inside, in two neat rows, beside the ones she wore.

I came back to the kitchen.

"Next to hers," I said. "If you want."

He crossed the room and put his forehead against mine.

"Yes," he said. "I want."

That was all we needed to say about it.

At six, we gave Tilly her bath in the kitchen sink.

She slapped the water and soaked my sleeve and Greg's shirt.

Then she stared at him, gravely, for a full second, and laughed out loud for the first time in her life.

It was a rusty little hiccup of a laugh.

Greg froze with a washcloth in one hand.

"Did you hear that?"

"I heard."

"She laughed at me."

"She laughed at your face."