Say Goodnight Before You Leave

3. Blood Type

Present.

"Are you sure you'll be giving away all of dad's clothes?" Dallas asks, running a hand over one of the boxes.

My room is crowded with endless boxes full of Karlo's belongings and things I thought it was time to get rid of. It used to be our room, our things - a sharp pain makes a knot in my chest. I look at him stretching my back - feeling the pains from my years of ballet running down my spine.

"No, not all of them," I say folding one of the last shirts - he wore this once at a friend's wedding, "I'm keeping some for you. The ones gifted from Lylia, some nice shoes, a couple of sweaters, his silk ties - they're too pretty to be given away."

He gives a weak smile. "I know. Even though, it still feels weird."

I walk to him. I run my hand over the locks of his hair, dark brown against his fair skin. I wondered what thoughts lived behind the green and amber of his eyes. Boy thoughts and man thoughts mixing, unexplainable growing pains.

"How so?"

He shrugs. "Sometimes it doesn't feel like he's gone. It's as if he's just away, for a while, and he'll come back." I try to answer, but whatever was going to come out gets stuck in my throat. "It doesn't stop the hurting, just makes it hurt less."

I take a deep breath to keep myself from crying.

"That's why you need to keep your mind occupied. It's what I'm trying to do. I know he would be happy about this, about giving. The doctor told me his organs will save a couple of lives, he would've been happy about that too," I sigh, placing down one last shirt.

When I turn around, Dallas' sitting on the bed, drowning himself in tears like a little boy after getting hurt. I sit and hold him closer to my body. An image of even before Karlo flashes my brain - Dallas, a tiny baby in my arms, against my naked chest after I breastfed him. It was a daily ritual and he slept long nights when I did it - times we didn't have much but love.

"Give yourself some time, Dallas," I whisper. "You're not alone, you won't ever have to cry alone."

---

Dallas got into his summer break not too long after Karlo's death. But I think this isn't ideal for us, I would prefer for him to be far from my halo of sadness, to have friends around and homework and tasks, something to distract his mind.

But he was methodically doing that by himself.

He took days organizing his room, throwing the trash out and moving furniture around. Then he would obsess over the piano, playing for hours, composing - Karlo taught Dallas himself, one of his biggest passions. Or spending hours on end with Lucas, Lylia's son, either here or at Lylia's house. Even though their age difference, they are inseparable best friends since the cradle.

But gloss over everything he does there is this air of anger as if he hated whatever he was doing.

Now his new obsession is photos. All the photo albums stayed at Karlo's office and he would spend hours by the desk flipping through pages and pages of dozens of albums - Karlo was keen to register every second of even the most mildly exciting event.

One day I walk in on him writing down on a diary about one of the pictures. He looks up at me with a serious face - he looked at least five years older, I guess that's what grief does to people. "Are they chronologically organized?"

"Yes," I begin sitting across from him, "Karlo had a little OCD about that." I look at the pictures on the page, in one of them Dallas' on my lap in our old house and in the other playing with my dad. "You are almost two on those."