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My eyes were swollen when I woke up, a harsh reminder of the grief I had tried to force down last night so I could fall asleep. I rolled out of bed and got ready, not bothering to go downstairs first. I wasn’t sure if I was prepared to talk to John about what had happened last night, and I was still debating just how out of line I had been with what I’d said.
I didn’t intend to cross the line and overstep when it came to how he was dealing with his grief, but I was feeling overly protective of Lily. We’d gotten relatively close spending every day together for the past two weeks, and then helping her with her blanket yesterday further solidified the bond between us. I felt this new connection to her that I hadn’t felt with anyone else before, not even Charlotte. It was this innate urge to protect her, and when John recommended that she go to therapy, my claws were out, and my teeth bared. I wanted—no needed him to be there for her and not disregard her grief as another problem for her therapist to handle.
Deep down in my heart, I didn’t believe that he really felt that way, but I couldn’t swallow down the words as they exploded from me. Maybe it was my own unresolved grief from losing my parents, or perhaps it was because Charlotte’s birthday was coming up, and I couldn’t handle the thought of not celebrating her.
I leaned forward and swiped at the blob of concealer that I had added to try to hide the circles under my eyes. I rubbed it in as good as I could and pulled back to get a better look. It wasn’t terrible, but I definitely looked exhausted. I added some blush to bring some color back to my face and ran the mascara wand through my eyelashes before calling it quits. That was as good as it was going to get. I had no plans to go anywhere and only bothered with getting ready so I didn’t scare Lily with how pale and sick I looked.
I pulled my hair up into a bun and secured it with a hair tie before making my way downstairs. I could hear John and Lily talking in the living room, so I tried to duck into the kitchen before they saw me.
“Good morning!” Lily said happily, stopping me in my tracks. I pulled in a deep breath and turned around, forcing a smile. John was sitting on the couch beside her with a handful of picture albums scattered across the coffee table. I felt the lump in my throat get bigger as I recognized which albums. On the other side of the coffee table, on the floor, was a cardboard box that had Charlotte’s name in all capital letters on the side.
“Good morning,” I answered, cautiously walking over to where they were sitting. “What are you looking at?” I asked dumbly, given that I already knew. I sat down on the arm of the couch, next to Lily. She reached down and picked up a picture, smiling as she handed it to me.
“Look, this is one of you and mom. It says on the back that you were in—”
“Sixth grade,” I whispered, finishing her sentence. I took the picture from her and covered my mouth with my hand as my lips trembled. We were both smiling with one arm hung over the other’s shoulder, and our bangs teased up high with an entire can of Aqua Net. It was taken outside of the school, our first day of sixth grade. We were only excited because we had all the same classes together; otherwise, it probably would have been a picture of us crying and holding each other while we felt the anxiety of being separated. Back then, there was rarely a moment when we weren’t together.
“It was our first day of school,” I added when no one else spoke. “We were so excited to have our classes together that we didn’t even worry about being at a new school.”
“Did you move?” Lily asked, her brows pulled together.
“No, but starting middle school is like starting a new school because you get mixed in with the older kids.”
“I don’t want to go to a new school,” she groaned, holding her hand in her face dramatically. “But,” she paused and thought about it. “I really don’t even like the school that I go to now. Can I just drop out and forget about school altogether?” she asked, turning to John.
“I’m afraid that’s not an option,” he assured her with a smile and a light laugh. “Middle school isn’t all that bad.”
“It is when you go to my school, and everyone follows you to the new school.”
I looked over her head at John to see if he was hearing what she was saying. Not just the words but the anguish behind them. I knew from the very first day that I picked her up that she wasn’t happy there. I could see it written all over her face when she didn’t know that I was there. It was worse when I had seen the reason for it after I got a good look at the girls who had been bullying her. Not much had changed since that day, other than she wasn’t subjected to any more of their bullshit after school once she dropped volleyball. Whatever happened during the day, she kept to herself, and I hated that I didn’t have a way of knowing.
When John refused to say anything, I decided to push past it and change the subject. I was still feeling frustrated from last night. The last thing that I wanted to do was start another fight in front of Lily. And even if it wasn’t a fight last night, I was pretty confident it would be one now.
“What are you doing with the pictures?” I asked, focusing my attention back on Lily.
“It’s for a project at school.”
“Oh, like the show and tell day you had a few months ago?” I felt the excitement in my tone as I remembered something that had happened without her having to tell me.
She scrunched her face and looked at me as if I’d just grown three horns and smelled like rotten onions.
“What?!” I laughed, leaning back as if she was going to hit me. I handed her the picture and folded my hands in my lap to keep from reaching out to pick up more. I didn’t want to intrude on whatever she was doing, especially since they were Charlotte’s old photo albums.
“Show and tell is for babies, Aunt Emma,” she clarified with way too much sarcasm for her age.
I held my hands up in front of me and laughed.
“Sorry,” I apologized playfully. “That’s what your mom called it, so I thought that’s what it was.”
“She always called it that, but I haven’t done show and tell since, like—second grade?” She tapped her finger against her chin as she thought about it. “Now we do About Us day and share something special about ourselves or our hobbies. Since school will be ending soon, and we’ll be forced into the next prison, we have to share something inspirational about who we want to be when we grow up. I want to be my mom,” she said proudly, picking up another picture from the table.
I felt my heart swell and shatter at the same time.
“Your mom would love that,” I whispered, unable to say anything more.
She smiled, but I could still see the sadness behind it. She sat on the floor, looking through the pictures that were spread out in front of her.
“I still have to talk about why she’s my inspiration and why I want to be her when I grow up, but I also wanted to honor her for her birthday next week. I wanted to find a photo of her where she’s really happy—like really, really, happy. Because that’s what I want to be when I grow up—happy.”
“There should be some pictures in there of some of her birthday parties,” I offered, lifting off the couch to try to get a better look inside of the box. I didn’t know what was in it, but I knew the album that I was looking for and frowned when I didn’t see it. “Is that all of the photo albums?” I asked John.
“I think I saw another box marked Charlotte in the garage. I’ll go grab it.”
He got up and went to look for it. I slid down from the arm and sat next to Lily on the floor. She was smiling as she flipped through a stack of photos from Christmas where Charlotte was dressed as an elf for the school play, and I was the Grinch. I was frowning in every single picture, despite her attempts to make me laugh. No wonder I got that part out of all of them.
She handed me a small stack of pictures that she had pulled out of an envelope before grabbing another stack for herself. I felt the twinge of sadness that crept up my back and covered me like a wet blanket. While these memories should be happy, they were now tainted with the sadness of knowing that they would never happen again. I would never hear her laughter. Never see her smile. There would be no more hugs when I’d had a hard day. These memories were now frozen in my mind as the last piece of her that I had left.
A few minutes later, I heard the garage door close as John came back inside with another box. He set it down beside the other one, a cloud of dust floating around us.
“Are there more pictures?” Lily asked, leaning over to look at the box.
“I don’t know. I haven’t looked inside yet,” he replied, running his hands down the front of his jeans. “Shall we look and see?”
Lily nodded yes excitedly and leaned forward as John cut open the box and lifted the flaps. He paused for a moment, caught off guard by something he found inside.
I found myself leaning forward, trying to get a view of whatever it was. Slowly, he reached inside and pulled out two teddy bears that were sewn together to make it look like they were kissing. The girl bear had her leg kicked up while the boy bear held a gift behind his back for her. I saw his eyes water as he looked at it, remembering the night he won it for her at the boardwalk. He had proposed to her shortly after that.
“Teddy bears?” Lily asked, confused by why John was so emotional about them.
He nodded yes, unable to speak. I could see the struggle inside of him as he tried to keep it together. This was a prime example of what I was talking about when I told him to let her see him grieve. She needed to know that he didn’t have it together all the time and that he missed Charlotte as much as she did.
“Your daddy won them for your mommy in Santa Cruz,” I said, looking over at him to make sure it was okay for me to tell her. He smiled and nodded for me to continue. “Right before he asked her to marry him.”
I watched the tear slip down his cheek before he could wipe it away. His fingers gripped the bears tighter as he fought to stay in control.
“Daddy, is that true?” she asked in disbelief, looking from the bears to him.
He looked up at me, his eyes wildly searching for mine as if asking what he should do. It was my turn to nod. I looked away to give him some privacy as he sat down in the chair behind him, clutching the bears to his chest. Lily immediately crawled out from behind the coffee table and rushed over to hug him.
I felt the tears wash down my face, unable to hold them in. John and Lily sat together as he held her on his lap, rocking her as they cried together. It was the first time that I had seen them both openly mourn Charlotte together since she died. This weight felt like it had been lifted from the room and my heart when I saw them together. This was what Lily needed, what both of them needed.