Harper was on the couch, a legal pad balanced on her knee, her mouth set in that familiar hard line she used when she didn’t want to talk but desperately needed someone to notice.
“You okay?” I asked, gently.
She didn’t look up. “Fine.”
“You’re allowed to be not fine.”
She scribbled something hard enough to tear the paper.
“You can’t plan your way through grief, you know.”
“I’m not grieving,” she snapped, too quickly. “I’m just… reorganizing.”
“Uh-huh.”
She shot me a glare. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You said everything with your face.”
I walked to the bookshelf, pulled down one of Iris’s old photo albums, and set it in her lap.
“I’m just saying, if you’re going to fall apart, maybe pick a softer place to land.”
She opened it. Flipped a page. Her jaw worked tight.
“I don’t know how to do this,” she said, barely a whisper.
“Yeah,” I said. “Me neither.”
And then I left her there. Not because I didn’t care. But because I knew she needed space, not solutions.
We were all learning that, one breath at a time.
I wandered outside again justbefore sunset.
The yard looked tired. Like it had hosted something bigger than it knew how to hold.
I kicked off my sandals, walked barefoot through the grass until I reached the swing. It creaked when I sat, the chain shifting just enough to remind me that it had been broken and fixed and was still, somehow, holding.
Grant pulled up not long after. No warning. Just a quiet engine, a familiar shape, and the sound of his boots on gravel.
“Hey,” he said, stepping onto the porch.
“You always show up after the dust settles.”
“Only when I’m invited.”
“I didn’t invite you.”
He smiled. “You didn’t not.”
He sat beside me. The swing shifted, but didn’t tip.
We didn’t speak for a while.
There was something safe about the silence. Not performative. Not tense. Just… honest.
