I’m scared, too. I didn’t want to scare her. I’m sorry she was scared.
You’re here, I whisper to her.
She seems to hear me because she moves a step closer, her hand over her mouth.
She doesn’t want to look. But she does. She has to.
She has courage.
This is the second kindness she’s shown me. I carried the first one with me, like a secret, all the time. Like a souvenir. Like a promise. We were both little. I think it’s a moment maybe only I remember.
Will I be warm now? Surrounded by that soft light growing in the distance? Can my parents say the funeral prayers now? Will there be peace?
Can I rest?