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the way,
Matt says, out of nowhere,
what about 1 for U two 4 me?
    I don’t answer. I stand on the ladder, in the attic from the waist up.
    “Smoky?” Callie calls from the doorway of the garage.
    “Be there in a sec.”
    Yes,
I think.
What about 1 for U two 4 me? What’s the plan there?
    I had learned, doing what I do, that good men and women can still have secrets. Good wives and husbands can still cheat on each other, or have secret vices, or turn out not to have been so good after all. And, I had learned, it all comes out once you die, because once you’re dead, others are free to root through your life at their leisure and you can’t do a darn thing about it.
    Which brings me to 1 for U two 4 me. It’s a password. Matt had explained the concept of picking secure passwords to me once after a family e-mail account had been compromised.
    “You want to include numbers with letters. The longer the better, obviously, but you want to pick something you can memorize and not have to write down. Something that’ll be mnemonic. Like…” He’d snapped his fingers. “One for you, two for me. That’s a phrase that sticks in my mind. So I change it a little and add some numbers and come up with 1 for U two 4 me. Silly, but I’ll remember it, and it’ll be hard for someone to guess by accident.”
    He’d been right. It was like gum on your shoe. 1 for U two 4 me. I’d never have to write it down. It would always be accessible.
    A few months after Matt died, I’d been sitting at his computer. We had a home office, and we each had our own PC. I was feeling numb and looking for something to awaken an emotion inside of me. I scrolled through his e-mail, dug through his files. I came upon a directory on the computer labeled
Private.
When I went to open the directory, I found that it was password protected.
    1 for U two 4 me, there it was, trotted out before I had to really think about it. My fingers had moved to the keyboard. I was about to type it out. I stopped.
    Froze.
    What if? I’d thought. What if private really does mean private? Like, private from me?
    The thought had been appalling. And terrifying. My imagination went into overdrive.
    A mistress? Porn? He loved someone else?
    Following these thoughts, the guilt.
    How could you think that? It’s Matt. Your Matt.
    I’d left the room, tucked away Mr. 1 for U two 4 me, and tried not to think about it.
    He popped up every now and then. Like now.
    Well? Truth or denial?
    “Smoky?” Callie calls again.
    “Coming,” I reply and clamber down the ladder.
    I still feel Matt.
    Waiting.
    1 for U two 4 me.
    Packing away the past, it occurs to me, is messy stuff.

    We’re standing in the doorway of Alexa’s room. I can feel discomfort looming in the not-far-off. Pain is a little sharper here, though still tolerable.
    “Pretty room,” Elaina murmurs.
    “Alexa liked the girly-girl stuff,” I say, smiling.
    It is a little girl’s dream room. The bed is queen-sized, with a canopy, and it’s covered with purples of every possible hue. The comforter and pillows are thick and lush and inviting. “Lie down and drown in us,” they say.
    One quarter of the floor is covered in Alexa’s stuffed animal collection. They range from small to big to huge, and the species run the gamut from the identifiable to the fantastic.
    “Lions and tigers and heffalumps, oh my,” Matt used to joke.
    I take it all in, and a thought comes to me. I wonder at the fact that it never occurred to me before.
    Bonnie has slept with me since the day I brought her home. I don’t think she’s ever entered this bedroom.
    Be accurate, I chide myself. You never brought her in here, that’s the truth. Never asked her if she might want a king’s ransom of stuffed animals, or a purple explosion of bedsheets and blankets.
    Time to fix
that
, I think. I kneel down next to Bonnie. “Do you want anything in here, sweetheart?” I ask her. She looks at me, her eyes searching mine. “You’re welcome to