Chapter 15
Years passed.
Emma grew.
She inherited none of Ethan’s face, which I once considered a blessing.
Later, I stopped caring.
She was not a collection of pieces belonging to other people.
She was herself.
At seven—the age Owen had been when he died—she became obsessed with astronomy.
On her birthday she asked why there was always a picture of a boy beside my bed.
I had waited for that question.
Still, I was not ready.
“That’s your brother.”
“I have a brother?”
“You did.”
“Where is he?”
Roman was standing in the doorway.
He did not answer for me.
I loved him for that too.
I sat beside Emma.
“He died before you were born.”
She studied Owen’s picture.
“How?”
There are truths children deserve in pieces.
Not because they are lies.
Because truth has weight, and children deserve to grow strong enough to carry it.
“There was an accident at a lake,” I said.
“Was he scared?”
My eyes filled.
“Yes.”
“Were you there?”
“No.”
She leaned against me.
“That must make you sad.”
“It does.”
She thought for a while.
Then she touched the photograph.
“Would he like me?”
I looked at her wild blond hair.
At the telescope stickers covering her pajamas.
At the chocolate around her mouth.
I laughed.
“He would have taught you terrible things.”
“Like what?”
“How to cheat at Go Fish.”
From the doorway Roman said, “I can confirm this.”
Emma gasped.
“Owen cheated?”
“Mercilessly.”
“Cool.”
That night, after she fell asleep, I stood outside beneath the September sky.
Roman found me.
He wrapped a blanket around my shoulders.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
That answer surprised me.
Because I was.
Not healed.
Not finished.
Not untouched.
Okay.
There is a difference.
I looked toward Emma’s window.
“Do you ever think about what would have happened if you answered Owen’s call?”
Roman became quiet.
“Yes.”
“Do you blame yourself?”
“Yes.”
I turned toward him.
“You couldn’t know.”
“I know.”
It was the same thing he had told me years before.
Knowing and feeling are different countries.
Sometimes we spend our whole lives traveling between them.
I touched his face.
“He called you because he trusted you.”
Roman looked down.
“I didn’t deserve that.”
“Maybe none of us deserve every good thing we’re given.”
He kissed my forehead.
The night smelled like wet grass.
Somewhere beyond the trees, a dog barked.
Emma shifted behind her window.
Life went on with outrageous normality.
Laundry.
School lunches.
Mortgage statements I insisted on paying myself.
Roman pretending he did not secretly upgrade my car every three years.
Arguments about work.
Apologies.
Birthdays.
Graves.
Christmas mornings.
Bad dreams.
First days of school.
Love.
Not the love I had believed in at twenty-two.
May you like
Something less innocent.
Something stronger.
