I laughed.
Gregory looked between us.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
But it was not nothing.
For the first time, the house did not feel like an object I had to keep or lose.
It could change.
So could I.
That afternoon, everyone went to the beach.
I stayed behind.
Not because I was sad.
Not because I was tired.
Because I wanted an hour alone.
That distinction mattered.
I walked through every room.
The downstairs bedroom where Gregory had once hidden a stray cat for three days.
The upstairs room where Brenda had spent a summer covering the walls with postcards.
The porch where Robert taught Cooper to shuffle cards.
The kitchen where Paisley stood on a stool beside me learning to cut strawberries with a butter knife.
There was love everywhere.
But love did not require freezing a place in time.
In our bedroom, I opened Robert’s closet.
His old blue windbreaker still hung on the door.
