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I was in the kitchen, sitting at the table, drinking a cup of coffee when John walked in. He looked calmer than I had seen him in—who knew how long. Months? Years? It was like the weight of the world was suddenly removed from his shoulders.
“Hey, we were looking for you,” he said, walking to the coffee pot to refill his cup.
“I wanted to give you guys some privacy,” I said, lifting the mug with two hands to take a sip.
“Thank you, but we didn’t need it. Not from you.” He poured some creamer and stirred it before turning to face me. “You’re family, Emma. There’s nothing that we aren’t going to share with you. You loved her as much as we did, and you’re going through pain, just like we are.”
I sucked in a shaky breath and set my cup on the table, afraid that I would drop it.
“Don’t say that,” I begged softly.
“What?” He frowned as he took a sip.
“That I’m family. That I’m part of you guys.” I lowered my eyes to the table and stared at the faded Disneyland image on the mug. “It hurts worse when I pretend that I am, John. I was Charlotte’s best friend, and I am Lily’s godmother, but I’m nothing more than that.”
He scowled as he listened, his features hardening.
He set his cup down on the island with a little more force than was necessary.
“You’re so incredibly frustrating,” he bit out angrily. “Do you realize that?”
I pulled back defensively and stared at him.
“How many times do I have to try to convince you that you are more than that, Emma? Do I have to spell it out for you that Lily and I would be lost without you? That you’re one of the few things that we look forward to when we come home to this house that is filled with constant reminders of what we’ve lost? Do you not see how Lily lights up whenever you’re around and how she can’t wait to tell you about her day? Or how I’m pushing myself to get done with work at a decent hour every day so I can come home to eat dinner with you guys? Do you not see any of that?”
I tried to swallow back the welling emotions inside, but my throat was suddenly dry.
“I can’t make you see how special you are to us, Emma. But I wish that I could. Maybe for once, you would believe in yourself the way I believe in you. You’re an amazing woman, and I pity anyone who can’t see that.” He picked up his coffee cup and walked out of the room.
It took me a few minutes before I could gather myself before walking out of the kitchen and risk facing him again. I hadn’t expected him to feel that way, let alone tell me. There was this passion behind his words, a conviction that made me believe them with every fiber of my being. But every time I played them over again in my head, I would hear the ringing alarm bells that screamed that I was crossing the line and thinking more into it than was really there.
I finished my coffee and rinsed my cup before loading it into the dishwasher. I was hoping to sneak past them and go up to my room for the rest of the day. Everything felt weird and awkward now, which made me desperate to find a place to hide until I could figure things out.
Just like before, I was unsuccessful at my attempt to get by unseen when Lily called me back into the living room. I pulled my shoulders back and tried to garner any illusion of confidence I had as I walked in and sat down next to her on the couch.
“Look what I found!” she exclaimed excitedly. “It’s a bucket list of all of the things that my mom wanted to do!”
I looked at the journal in her lap and smiled, remembering when Charlotte had made it. We’d stayed up late and laughed for hours as we came up with the most random, impossible list of things. I had completely forgotten about it until now.
“I remember,” I said softly, resting my elbow on my knee and my chin in my hand.
“Did you guys ever do any of it?” she asked with even more excitement.
“We were going to, right after we graduated high school. We were going to travel and conquer her list. But then we moved to California, and she met a boy. After that, all of her time was suddenly focused on him,” I teased, giving John a playful scowl. His smile stretched tight across his face, showing off his perfect teeth.
“Hey, what can I say?” he shrugged cockily. “I was more exciting than her bucket list.”
I let my head fall back as I laughed.
“I seriously doubt that,” I joked, holding my stomach as I laughed harder.
Lily got the giggles and laughed along with me, while John raised an eyebrow and narrowed his eyes at us.
“Why is that?”
“Because I remember that list. There were some pretty amazing things on it that would be more exciting than any boy.”
“How do you know?” Lily asked sincerely as she looked at the list again. She picked up the journal and tilted it to the side, then upside down as if she was trying to find some secret code. “None of it makes any sense. It’s all riddles and codes.”
“That was the fun part,” I squealed, remembering how we worked so hard to create the perfect clue for each one.
“Do you remember what all of them are?” She looked up at me with hope in her eyes.
I pulled in a deep breath, not ready to promise her anything that I couldn’t deliver on.
“I don’t know, honey. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that list,” I admitted sheepishly.
Her face fell, and the excitement that had been there a few minutes before vanished.
“Maybe we could all try to solve them together?” John asked from his chair, sensing the panic that was flooding through me.
“I like that idea,” I agreed. “Teamwork always makes things easier.”
“Okay,” she said with a tiny spark of enthusiasm.
“What’s the first one?” John pressed, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees as he concentrated. I had to fight the laughter that was bubbling up inside with how serious he looked.
Lily cleared her throat, then lifted the notebook and began reading.
“Go high in the sky, but not faster than the birds fly.”
She lowered it and looked between us.
“That’s easy,” John said proudly, puffing his chest. “It’s a plane. She wanted to fly on a plane.”
Lily nodded as if that made sense to her. I laughed and shook my head in disagreement.
“Okay, smarty pants,” John teased, pointing a finger at me. “Then what is it?”
“Charlotte had already flown on a plane when she wrote this. She went to Florida with her parents when she was ten. They flew there, and that was the first time she went to Disney World.”
John’s cocky smile faded, replaced with another scowl.
“Shit. I forgot about that.”
“Language!” Lily scolded and shook her finger at him.
“Do you know what it was?” she asked, looking back at me once she finished giving her dad the look.
“I know that your mom always wanted to ride a Ferris wheel. That would be my guess. It’s high in the sky and definitely slower than birds.” I turned to look at John. “How in the world did you guess plane anyway? What kind of birds have you seen that are faster than a plane?”
I watched as the pink in his cheeks flushed red with embarrassment. He leaned back in his chair, the cocky, confident attitude from a few minutes ago gone.
“I’m going to get a paper and write all of these down!” Lily said before she got up and took off to her room.
Just as fast as she ran up the stairs, she came down even quicker. She plopped down on the floor beside me and opened a spiral notebook, flipping the pages until she found a clean one. I giggled as I watched her write her name and the date in the top right corner, a habit from school she hadn’t even noticed she had done.
She numbered the paper and rewrote each riddle, leaving a few lines beneath each one to write her answers.
“Okay,” she said when she had them all down. “So, the first one is a Ferris wheel. Are you guys ready to guess more?”
“Let’s do it,” John said, rubbing his hands together as he leaned forward again. I wasn’t sure if he was genuinely this interested in it or if he was just enjoying his time with Lily. I made the mistake of looking over at him and caught him staring at me. I blushed and looked away, trying to focus as she read the next riddle.
“Eat with the ants, but you can’t wear pants.” She laughed and reread it, unsure of whether she had read it wrong the first time. “Can’t wear pants?!” She giggled.
I laughed along with her; the smile that was plastered to her face contagious.
“Why can’t you wear pants?” she asked, still tickled by the thought.
“Because it rhymes with ants?” I suggested, not really sure myself. I could imagine us back then, laughing hysterically when she wrote it.
“Okay, so eat with the ants,” John said, tapping his finger to his chin. “Maybe a picnic?”
I raised my brows, impressed with his quick answer.
“Eating with the ants does sound like a picnic to me,” I agreed.
“So, where can you have a picnic without wearing pants?” Lily wondered, mimicking her father with her chin tapping.
“Maybe you can wear something else?” John suggested. “Like shorts?”
“Or a swimsuit!” I exclaimed, jumping up from my seat on the couch. “You could have a picnic on the beach!”
Lily jumped up next to me and started bouncing with excitement.
“That sounds like so much fun!” she squealed. “Can we go to the beach next weekend and have a picnic with the ants for mom’s birthday?” Her energy radiated through the room, but the moment she mentioned Charlotte’s birthday, I felt it drain from John and me.
My shoulders slumped as I felt the sadness wash over me. I looked at him and noticed the way his body had stiffened in response as well. It was like being punched in the stomach without any warning. Sensing the change in the room, Lily quickly looked between us, panic washing over her face that she had upset us.
John reacted before I could, thankfully.
“I think that’s a great idea,” he said with a forced smile. “We can honor your mom by checking something off of her bucket list.”
Lily grew quiet and looked down at the notepad on the coffee table. She reached down and picked it up, studying it carefully.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, touching her shoulder.
“If I can only do one thing from this list to honor her, I want to make sure that I pick the best one,” she explained, still looking at it. “But how do I know what the best one is? How do I know what the one thing was that mom wanted to do before she die—.”
I racked my brain, trying to come up with an answer. ANY answer. But there wasn’t one because how do you explain to a child that you don’t know whether or not their mother got to do everything she wanted to do before she died? I could guarantee that Charlotte had a list of things she wanted to achieve that she had never told anyone. We all did. But how do you help a child pick ONE to honor their mother? Suddenly, I was regretting going through the list with her. It was only going to lead to sadness.
“How about... we do ALL of them?” John asked as he got up and walked over to Lily.
“ALL?” she repeated in disbelief.
He reached down and gently held her head as he rested his forehead against hers.
“All,” he confirmed.
“When?”
“This summer,” he said, easily as if he had all the time in the world.
I forced a smile as Lily bounced around the room again, filled with excitement at the promise of working on the list of things her mother never got around to doing. I cast a glance at John, hoping that he hadn’t just made her a promise that he couldn’t keep.