Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 113270 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 566(@200wpm)___ 453(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113270 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 566(@200wpm)___ 453(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
Her sweet, melodic voice floats through my memory. “Aunt Breezy, I want to be a painter like my daddy!”
God, I miss that girl so much.
Norah crouches nearby, helping Autumn arrange a tiny bouquet in the vase at the base of the stone. Autumn chatters the whole time, serious and loud in her toddler way. “Pinks! Smells good! Me picks dem!”
“That’s right, Autumn. You picked out pink flowers for Summer,” Norah hums encouragement, smoothing her daughter’s curls away from her face. “And she would’ve loved them.”
Autumn grins and leans her little body against Norah’s side. And I can’t get over how natural they look together, like two puzzle pieces that always belonged.
Behind us, Bennett stands a few steps back, hands shoved deep in his coat pockets and his face carved tight. While my brother is happy in his life, it’s a fact that losing his daughter Summer has made grief live in him permanently now. It’s quieter than it used to be, but it’s stitched into the fabric of who he is.
I rise slowly, standing beside him, not sure if I should speak. Honestly, words feel clumsy here. Even two years after losing Summer, I never feel like I can fully convey how I feel or how much I miss Summer or how much I loved her. But when my sleeve brushes his, his hand shifts from his pocket and finds mine, squeezing once in a silent and steady gesture.
It undoes me more than words ever could.
After a while, Bennett steps closer to Norah and Autumn. He wraps his arm around his wife’s shoulders, and Autumn finds her spot beside his legs, hugging her daddy tightly. The three of them—grief and love and life all knotted together—make a perfect, imperfect whole.
I hover in the back. The spare piece. The ghost on the edge of their little family.
And my chest aches with something sharp and new.
I’ve never let myself wonder about motherhood. Never really wanted to. My life has always been noise and deadlines and gallery openings and a very curated version of purpose that left no room for anything else. I’ve measured years in profit margins and successful exhibitions, not birthdays and bedtime stories. But watching Norah guide Autumn’s tiny hands toward the flowers again, I feel something deep inside me tug.
It’s quiet but powerful. It’s a desire I don’t know if I even want to name.
I’m thirty-nine years old. I’ve never missed what I never thought I wanted, but it’s as if I feel the sharp edge of something I’ve always ignored. The absence of a life I never gave myself the time or permission to want.
A buzz rattles in my coat pocket, jarring me out of my own head.
I glance at the screen and see Incoming Call Logan.
Without hesitation, I press the side button and silence the call without looking at the screen. He doesn’t get this moment. Not here. Not today.
We stay a little longer, silence consuming us all.
Autumn places her palm against the stone and whispers, “Summy-bee.”
It’s as close as her little toddler mouth can get to saying Summblebee—the nickname my brother always used for Summer.
Bennett turns away, blinking too fast, and Norah squeezes his hand, and I have to swallow the lump in my throat and force the liquid emotion out of my eyes.
Summer would’ve loved her little sister Autumn. And Autumn would’ve loved her too. That’s a fact. That’s the bittersweet and tragic truth. Summer was taken from us too soon, and I’m certain there will never be a time when any of us feels okay with that.
We can live through it. We can cope with it. But we’ll never be okay with it.
Eventually, we drift back toward the car. Autumn skips between Bennett and Norah, clutching both her parents’ hands while her curls bounce like springs in the pale sunlight. They look whole. Complete.
And I trail a few steps behind, my boots crunching in the frost, the sharp ache inside me still very present.
For most of my life, I told myself I didn’t need family or the love of a good man or the kind of steady devotion that roots you somewhere.
But watching them now, I find myself silently wondering if I somehow managed to miss out on my own life.
…
After Norah, Bennett, Autumn, and I left the cemetery, we stopped at the Diner to eat a late brunch.
Now, the three of them are outside, bundled in coats, helping Autumn build what she insists is a castle, though it looks suspiciously like a snow mound with twigs sticking out of it.
I’m back in the guest room, sitting cross-legged on the bed, the faint smell of syrup still clinging to my sweater and a half-finished yellow scarf pooling in my lap. My knitting needles click quietly in the silence in a soft rhythm that’s almost meditative. My stitches are uneven, my yarn keeps tangling, but somehow, it feels grounding.