Chapter 153

“Mighta been easier if we’d ever done it before. Ma left Mace’s room alone. In case she wanted it back or something. Shut it up, and we never went in there,” Scooter continued. He stared down at his hands, not wanting to see what Andy was thinking. Not wanting to see pity—or worse—on his face. “Dad did the same to Ma’s…project room, I guess you’d call it. Not that Ma was going to come back, but we didn’t need any of that stuff, and Dad couldn’t…he just couldn’t go in there anymore, and I didn’t know how to make him. Bet there’s a bunch of ladies from her old unit that’d love to get their hands on some of her dresses. She was a fine seamstress.”

“Oh, so that’s what’s behind the third door,” Andy murmured.

“Mace wanted to burn it down,” Scooter said. “The house, the restaurant. She lives down in Atlanta, she’s a nurse. I haven’t seen her since that…since just after Ma’s funeral. We don’t talk anymore. I mean, we never did much but now not at all.”