Noah and I were in the front yard when I noticed Darren's truck parked in his driveway down the street. It had been two days since we last saw him. I was weeding the garden under the living room window, perched in the dirt on my knees. There were daffodils, daylilies, and wintergreen boxwood shrubs. I hadn't lost my green thumb during my years in the city. Noah used his hand-held shovel to transfer dirt from one part of the garden to another. I sat up to wipe my sweaty face when I turned to see the blue truck.

"Uncle Darren's home, No," I said.

"Ren!" he replied, tossing the dirt over his shoulder.

"Should we go say hi?"

"Hi, hi, hi, hi." He bounced up and down and then fell backward.

Noah and I had spent every minute together since Charlie left. We made breakfast and read stories, watched cartoons and played on the tire swing in the backyard. We even had new nicknames for each other. I called him No and he called me You or Hey. His was based on the first syllable of his name while mine was what he said before issuing a command. "Hey, ba-na-na!" or "You don't do that," whenever I would turn off the tablet.

I didn't even realize I hadn't heard from Darren since the ominous I won't be at the house tonight text the night I had packed up the master bedroom. I was so consumed with cleaning and packing, not to mention taking care of Noah full-time since I had told Anna that she could take a break, I didn't feel his absence.

Noah and I walked the four houses down to Darren's hand in hand on the sidewalk. Although it had felt like we were living together those first few days after I had arrived, it dawned on me that he had this whole secret life that was separate from us. I approached the door and thought about the kiss, the scene of the crime, and wondered if his absence had anything to do with it. It was finally ok to be kissing and Darren was nowhere in sight.

I knocked on the door and there was no answer. I tried again and waited a few minutes. Noah knocked on the bottom of the door. Of course, Darren didn't have a doorbell. When there wasn't an answer after the third knock, I looked down at Noah covered in dirt. "Should we just go in?" I asked.

Noah smiled up at me. I called Darren's name as soon as I opened the door. The layout was exactly the same as Phil's house. It opened into a large foyer with stairs to the second floor. The living room was to the right of a long hallway that led to the kitchen behind it. You could tell a bachelor lived there––nothing was finished and everything served a function. There were no tchotchkes or decorative rugs or plants. Just a worn brown sofa and a poorly-constructed end table. There was a light on in the kitchen, so I followed it. "Hello?" Noah ran past me.

"Noah?" I heard from beyond the corner.

When I made it into the kitchen, Noah was already in Darren's arms. There were stacks of manilla folders on the kitchen counter and a computer with an open spreadsheet. It also looked like there were hundreds of receipts on every surface, including the floor.

"What are you guys doing here?" Darren asked. I couldn't tell if he was surprised or annoyed. His beard was longer than usual and his hair, which usually laid like waves, was flat.

"We haven't seen you in a while. And then I saw your truck."

"Sorry, I meant to say something."

"Work?" I pointed at his makeshift office.

"I never realized how much we split the business until now." He set Noah down on top of a stack of folders.

"You should take a break. Have you eaten?"

He looked around the room as if trying to remember. I could see dishes in the sink and Chinese takeout containers in the trash.

"I can make some pizza. Come over in an hour."

Darren agreed and tapped a folder on Noah's head. "See ya later, little guy," he said.

Before we were out the door, I could hear Darren typing away. While I felt bad that he was overwhelmed with work, I was relieved that he wasn't avoiding me for other reasons. I had been worried about nothing.

Noah and I returned to the garden. Every so often I turned to look at the truck as I threw weeds in the large black trash bag next to me. I thought of Darren's house, practically identical to my brother's, yet it was so empty. Where Phil had baby toys and laundry for three, Darren had paperwork; where Phil had decorative pillows and picture frames and candles, Darren had unopened or forgotten mail; Phil's house was full of color schemes, floral patterns, and wallpaper, probably chosen by Theresa, while Darren's was still a blank canvas.

When I pulled the final weed and began to tie the garbage bag, I noticed Noah walking back and forth from his section of the garden to the middle of the lawn. He was carrying dirt in his tiny shovel and feeding it to the picture of his father on the Baker Brothers sign. There was a tiny pile of mulch growing underneath the sign and a trail along the way. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

I removed the sign from the lawn and brought it inside the house with us. We washed our hands in the kitchen as I preheated the oven. I fed Noah his favorite dinner in his high chair, leftover chicken and broccoli. He ate quietly, occasionally mumbling to himself, as I stood at the window and poured pizza sauce onto the dough. I sprinkled the first layer of cheese and then lifted Noah from his chair so he could sprinkle some too. Then we plopped pepperoni, eating every other slice.

After the pepperoni was gone, I slid the pizza into the oven and set the timer. I told Noah we had to change into pajamas and read a story before the buzzer in the kitchen went off. He danced around his bedroom with excitement, pulled his rocket ship pajamas out of the hamper, and raised his arms to be dressed. I tucked him in and read a few pages of And Tango Makes Three, the first book I had purchased when my brother told me he was having a baby. I saw it in a bookshop in the city and imagined that moment, reading to my future niece or nephew a story about two male penguins who adopt a baby penguin at the zoo. I just didn't know I would be reading it as his guardian.

When Noah was asleep, I snuck out of the rocking chair and turned on the nightlight. By that point, I was a pro at getting out unnoticed. I made my way into the guest room and raced the timer. I needed to change into something better than the Baker Brothers t-shirt I was wearing covered in dirt. I threw it off and scrambled through the closet with my limited options. Why hadn't I packed more? There was one shirt with buttons, so I put it on and looked in the mirror.

There was dirt on my face and I was sure I smelled, but the timer went off. Ding! There was no time to shower. I quickly sprayed myself with cologne and ran down to the kitchen. I turned the oven off, but kept the pizza inside. I rinsed my face in the sink and used the oven door as a mirror to make sure all of the dirt was gone.

I stood there for a moment, leaning against the counter, watching the clock. It had been over an hour since we left and Darren still wasn't there. Instead of worrying, I started tidying up the dining room. I didn't know why I was so nervous. We had eaten dinner together several times before. Was it a date?

"It smells good," I heard Darren say as he walked from the foyer to the kitchen a few minutes later. "Where's Noah?"

"I just put him to bed. You can go up and see him." I was lighting the candles.

"No, I don't want to excite him." He looked just as tired as before and sat down at the counter.

"I set the table," I said. I walked past him with the hot pizza pan.

He looked behind him at the table. There were two large candlesticks glowing in the center and a vase with yellow daylilies that I had picked from the garden.

"What's all this?" he asked.

"Dinner," I said.

We sat down across from each other and served ourselves. The sun was setting behind us and the lights in the kitchen were dimmed, so we were mostly lit by the candlelight. I filled him in on Noah's new words and what it was like having him full-time. We avoided the topic of Charlie. Darren told me about work, that when he was meeting with potential customers he couldn't oversee current projects or plan for future ones. He was overwhelmed with the workload and just trying to stay afloat. The time off for the funeral had set him back even further.

"Why don't I help?" I suggested.

"You?" he laughed. "You don't know the first thing about home improvement." He stuffed a piece of pizza into his mouth.

"After seeing your place today, it's clear you're not the visionary. I have an artist's eye, I'm sure that could be useful. Besides, it's time I start contributing to my ten percent of the business."

"You're a silent partner. That means you don't have to do anything."

"I want to help."

"Ok. But it won't be easy. We start bright and early tomorrow. 8 am."

"Really?"

"Don't make me regret this." He looked like he already did.

"Oh, I almost forgot!" I said, getting up. "I found these while packing up Phil's room the other day." I walked over to the bar and pulled out the stack of records. I opened the top of the record player and slid the vinyl onto the needle. The crackle sparked like a fire and then the music played. "You remember this album?"

"You packed Phil's room?" Darren asked, ignoring me and the music. He sounded surprised.

"Yeah, I put everything in boxes. I figured I'd let Jeanine come over and take what she wants of Theresa's and donate the rest."

"I'm gone for two days and you just throw everything away?" He stopped eating and stood up.

"I didn't throw anything away! What's your problem, Darren? I thought you weren't mad at me anymore."

"You can't just do whatever you want."

"And why not? He is my brother," I said. "Was," I corrected. I sat back down and poured more wine for myself.

Darren paced back and forth between the dining room and kitchen. "No, you're right. I'm sorry. First, the sign goes missing from the lawn and then this. I'm just stressed." He joined me back at the table.

"Well soon you won't be stressed. You'll have me to help with the business stuff."

Darren chuckled as he ate another slice of pizza.

"Don't laugh!" I said. I threw a pepperoni at him. He threw another one at me and we went back and forth like that for a minute, screaming and laughing, Prince playing in the background, until he caught one pepperoni with his mouth. "You're such a pig!"

He oinked. He ran to my end of the table and snorted and grunted like a pig, digging his nose into my neck and shoulder and ear, anything that would tickle me. "What does the pig say?" he asked in his Noah voice. I pushed him off of me and he continued to oink and dig. Then he grabbed a slice of pizza and sat on the kitchen counter.

I got up from my chair and held the glass of wine in my hand. I turned up the volume and began to dance to the music, slow, moving closer with each small step. I put my hands in the air and swayed my head and hips from side to side in time to the percussion. Darren watched me. He didn't take his eyes off of me. I grabbed his hand and pulled him off the counter. "Dance with me," I said. He stood close, still like a statue, and watched me sway.

"I can't," he said half a song later.

"Why?" I stopped moving. I looked up at him and searched his eyes for an answer, but they were foreign to me.

"I think you have the wrong idea."

"Wrong idea? It's just dancing."

"I can't," he said again.

Just as I was about to curse him for playing with my emotions, for kissing me and sending my boyfriend away and disappearing and saying he can't, whatever that meant, the baby started crying on the monitor next to the sink. We both looked at it, relieved for the interruption.

"I'll get him," Darren said, turning away so quickly it was like he had willed Noah to cry.

"Don't bother," I said. "We've been fine without you."

Author's Note: Thanks for reading! Don't forget to vote and comment :)