Chapter 4
The days found their own strange rhythm. Mornings with Mr. Cho, her body aching in new places every night. Afternoons with Dorothy and Maeve, learning the shape of a family she hadn’t known she was allowed to want.
On the fifth afternoon, Maeve presented her with a drawing — three figures standing on green ground under a yellow sun that took up half the page. On the left, small, black-curled, grinning — Maeve. In the middle, white-haired, in a cream dress — Dorothy. On the right, the tallest figure, brown hair, black clothes. Above her head, in crooked, uneven letters: Miss Brie. Three people, holding hands.
“She’s drawn you every day since you got here,” Dorothy said quietly from her armchair. “Before that, it was only ever the two of us.”
Brielle’s finger traced the wobbling crayon line connecting them. Dorothy set her knitting down and spoke again, softer now. “Catherine liked to draw, too. My daughter-in-law. Landscapes, flowers, portraits of Maeve when she was a baby. This house used to be full of her paintings.” A pause. “Jude put all of them away after she died. When Catherine died, Jude died too. What’s left — the man who eats breakfast with his mother, who smiles at his daughter — that’s only fragments. Most of him is buried with her.”
She turned and studied Brielle. “You, too, aren’t you? You lost someone and buried part of yourself with them.” Silence. “Your family, child. Do you have anyone?”
Ice. It wasn’t gradual. It was instant, as if someone had poured something cold straight into Brielle’s veins. “I’m sorry,” she said in a voice flattened almost past recognition, and walked out.
Maeve came running after her, holding the drawing up. “Miss Brie — you forgot this!”
Brielle stopped and turned. Maeve stood there, breathless, holding the paper up with both hands. Brielle knelt down, her knees meeting the wood floor, and reached out to take the paper. Her hand was shaking — visibly, plainly, the kind of trembling that can’t be hidden.
“Thank you, sweetheart,” she said, so quietly Maeve had to tilt her head to hear it.
May you like
Maeve beamed, hugged her around the neck for exactly one second, and ran back down the hall. Brielle knelt on the floor, holding a child’s drawing of three people who would not let go of each other’s hands, while something in her chest that had been frozen for over a decade cracked a little wider.
That night, she read to Maeve before bed. Somewhere around the seventh page, the child’s weight against her arm changed — heavier, slower breathing, the complete surrender of a five-year-old who trusted the world enough to fall asleep in it. Brielle sat frozen, afraid to move, listening to that steady breathing and thinking it might be the most peaceful sound she had ever heard. She didn’t know how long Jude had been standing at the end of the hallway, one shoulder against the doorframe, watching. He said nothing. He didn’t need to.
