She chews on her lip, lifting her head to look at me. “A week, maybe? I can show you around the farm. Maybe we can visit Mr. Hamlin at the piano bar. I know he’d love to see you.” Her eyes glow with jade embers.
I fucking loved Mr. Hamlin. He was one of the few men in my life who I genuinely respected. “Sounds perfect.”
A few minutes roll by in peaceful silence before Stevie speaks again. “Hey, Lex?”
“Hmm?” A drowsy smile tugs at my mouth.
“Will you do something with me?”
My eyes open all the way, and I glance at her. “Sure.”
A few minutes later, we’re properly dressed and padding our way down the hall to a closed door. My heart jumps when she stops in front of it and presses her palm to the wood face.
Morrison’s room.
Her baby brother’s nursery.
Her eyes are wide, tears reflecting against the hallway light. “I haven’t been in here. Not since…” She nearly chokes. “Not since that day.”
I don’t know what to say.
But I think all she needs is a hand to hold. It’s what we’d always do when words were hard to come by. I stretch my hand in the space between us and braid our fingers together. She squeezes tight, then slowly cracks open the door.
When the light switch flips on, Stevie almost buckles to her knees. I squeeze her hand tighter, offering her steadiness, balance, and strength.
“God…it looks the same.” Tears fall down her cheeks in little rivers. “It still smells the same too.”
Everything is blue-green.
Teal polka-dotted wallpaper borders the upper walls. Aquamarine furniture. A nursery lamp, the color of the sea, shaped like a dolphin. And tucked inside the matching crib set is an empty swaddling blanket spread out across the infant-size mattress.
Emotion burns the back of my throat, fracturing my voice. “Your favorite color.”
“Yes,” she chokes out.
“It reminds you of him.”
“Yes.”
His name is carved out in block letters above the crib. Her gaze trails the pieces,a small smile breaking through her tears, soft and bittersweet. The room is still, the love she had for him wrapping itself around every untouched toy and fitted sheet.
Stevie’s breath hitches, but she doesn’t collapse under the weight of it. Instead, she stands taller, the warmth of memory edging through the sorrow. The scent of baby powder and must lingers in the air, not as a reminder of what’s gone but of what remains.
“He was supposed to grow up,” she says quietly, stepping toward the crib and curling her hands around the wooden rail. “He was supposed to live.”
I swallow, watching as she gazes down at the vacant crib.
I can’t help but think about my mother. About the years I spent chasing herapproval, the slow unraveling of everything I thought I knew. It hits me that I’d been clinging to something that had died a long time ago.
Death isn’t always tangible. Sometimes it’s a feeling, and sometimes it’s the absence of feeling. Sometimes it’s a weight added, and sometimes it’s a weight lifted. Mourning isn’t always funerals and headstones; sometimes it’s the silent realization that some things are better left to rest.
“He does live,” I whisper to Stevie, stepping forward and wrapping my arms around her waist from behind. “Not all things are meant to grow the way we thought they would. But that doesn’t mean we’re left with nothing.”
She turns to me, her eyes shining with something that looks like peace—like she’s found a way to carry the loss without it breaking her.
In a way, we’re both letting go.
Nodding, she turns back to the crib, presses a kiss to her fingertips, then gently touches the turquoise blanket with a final goodbye.
