that would be perfect.’
June bowed her head. Her voice was small but clear.
She thanked God for Grandpa Colin in heaven. She thanked God for people who tell the truth. She thanked God for houses that stay kind. Then she looked up and added, a little shyly, ‘And thank you for my mom, because she’s brave even when she’s tired.’
Nobody at that table spoke for a second.
Then Odette reached for my hand under the linen and squeezed once. Adrian looked politely down at his plate. I laughed and cried at the same time, which made June giggle because apparently I had become predictable.
After dinner, while June and Odette argued affectionately over pie portions in the kitchen, I stood alone for a moment in the hallway outside the study. Colin’s letter was folded in my sweater pocket, edges softened from rereading. The windows reflected warm light back into the dark yard. Somewhere behind me, June was laughing. Somewhere beyond all of it was the empty place Colin still occupied in our lives, no smaller than before, but no longer the place where fear lived too.
For the first time since he died, I understood something I had been too bruised to believe.
Losing the people who never really loved you is not the same thing as losing a home.
Sometimes it is how you find one.
