Chapter 23
Wren
Everston had eased into the quiet rhythms of early spring—morning runs through trails edged with snow, sleepy weekends tangled in blankets with Olivia, biweekly Tuesdays with the grief group, Henry insisting peppermint hot chocolate be added to the usual tea and snacks, and countless pancakes shared at Sam’s Diner.
In seven months, I had torn down walls in the old house, just like I had dismantled parts of myself.
I had replanted the garden, and in doing so rediscovered myself.
I had repainted rooms, and in the same way I had become someone new.
In those seven months, I had gone from being hell-bent on running from my pain to slowly letting it in, because it was the only way I was ever going to begin to understand it.
Grief, as it happened, was not a linear thing; it didn’t follow a clear line from start to finish, rather it pivoted and curved like a winding road through the mountains.
Sometimes it was a calm journey, other times not, but I found my way through it.
That particular afternoon, I opened my front door to find Henry standing on the porch.
Just behind him, the rest of the group had gathered—Emerson holding a bouquet of dahlias (my favorite); Rita balancing a basket of still-warm cinnamon rolls; Gill, Julian, and Max each carrying colorful gift bags in varying states of crumple; and Bobby holding a very large Happy Birthday balloon that wobbled in the breeze.
“Happy birthday!” they called out, more or less in unison.
Emerson sighed audibly. “We practiced that,” she muttered. “Evidently not enough.”
I laughed as she breezed past me, heading straight for the kitchen where Olivia was overseeing the lemon and herb roasted chicken we’d been preparing together.
I’d made my homemade pesto to drizzle over the warm potato and green bean salad, much to Olivia’s delight.
I stepped aside to let the others in. The entryway had become one of my favorite spaces in the house—a tall ceiling crowned with pressed tin, now freshly painted in soft cream.
The old hardwood floors gleamed, and I’d lined the hallway with vintage frames I’d found in the antique shop up near Norvale.
Where once there had been peeling wallpaper and water stains, now there was warmth.
Henry hugged me tightly. “Happy birthday, Wren,” he said. “We love an Aries.”
“One with excellent taste,” Bobby added, glancing around approvingly. “This front entrance? Immac.”
I greeted each of them with a hug, and the house filled with chatter and laughter as they filed inside.
Gill hovered behind, marveling at the changes. “I barely recognize the place!” he said. “I didn’t know if you had it in you, but boy I have never been so happy to be wrong.”
“I have something for you,” I said, and Gill’s eyes brightened. “It’s not chocolate, I’m afraid,” I added, but he chuckled.
“I think Henry has you covered in that department; the boy always brings me chocolate.”
“That he does,” I agreed. “What I have for you is in the library.”
I led Gill through the front hall, and into the parlor I had converted into a library.
I’d spent six weeks constructing the shelving and then filled it with the books Gill had stacked from floor to ceiling in the basement.
Henry had also contributed nearly an entire row of books himself.
I moved to the window, gently drawing back the curtains.
Behind them, I’d had a custom stained-glass window put in, with the colorful outline of two opossums embracing each other.
Gills eyes went misty. “Oh, Wren,” he whispered. “This is just…Edith would love this.”
“I thought she might,” I said softly. We stood there for a quiet moment, Gill staring up at the window, a small smile of wonder on his face.
“Thank you for letting me stay, Gill. I was so lost when I arrived here—broken, really. But I found Sam’s Diner, and I found you.
And this house gave me the space to begin again.
You welcomed me when I didn’t feel welcome anywhere.
And you led me to Henry’s grief group, too, which has helped me more than I could ever explain. ”
Gill’s eyes softened. “You brought life back into this house, Wren. Into all of us, I think.”
He cleared his throat, blinking back emotion. “Now, come on,” he said. “I can smell whatever delicious thing you and Olivia have been roasting.”
We walked back through the hall toward the kitchen, the smell of rosemary and lemon wafting through the house.
The kitchen opened up just past the archway, with tall windows that overlooked the garden and let in the last of the fading afternoon light.
I’d kept all the original floorboards, the wide molding, and the antique ceiling rose, but I’d updated the broken kitchen cabinets with pale sage cupboards, those brass handles I’d found, and open shelves lined with dishes and jars of dried herbs.
Everyone had gathered around the reclaimed farmhouse table, set with mismatched plates, linen napkins, and jam jars holding handpicked wildflowers.
Olivia was bent over the oven, carefully lifting the roasted chicken from its tray, the golden skin crackling as it hit the cutting board.
A flush had crept into her cheeks from the heat, a wisp of hair falling loose at her temple.
I’d grown to love the way she moved so easily through my kitchen now; after countless nights cooking together, after learning my pesto sauce, after rolling pasta dough across the counter while we laughed and danced to music.
I stepped beside her, unable to help myself.
“You okay?” I asked, brushing her hair behind her ear.
“I’m perfect,” she replied, smiling without looking up.
“I happen to have graduated from my Easy-Bake Oven days.” I leaned in, pressed my lips to the corner of her mouth, and listened to her sigh in response.
“Go and sit,” she murmured, her eyes filled with affection. “Emerson and I will start serving.”
As I sat down at the table, I thought of Lucy.
She would’ve approved of this birthday party.
And the thought of her didn’t make me sad.
It made me happy. I felt like I’d finally arrived at the next chapter, the one where the heaviness had begun to lift.
The house was no longer just a project or a distraction, it was a home.
The garden was beginning to bloom again, and so was I.
Some of my favorite people were here, the kitchen smelled of rosemary and cinnamon, and there was a birthday cake cooling on the counter.
The poetry evening was just a couple of weeks away, and we were all looking forward to it.
When I was finalizing the book, I had decided that the final poem in Thinking of You should be Winnie’s poem.
She had taught us that a heart could be both broken and full at once, and that was the most human lesson of them all.
That night, I had decided to gift everyone their copy.
There was a time I thought I might never write again—that poetry had left me along with everything else—but, it turns out, the things we love the most have a way of coming back to us.
“There you are,” I said, stepping onto the porch.
Olivia sat on the swing, legs tucked beneath her, a glass of red wine in one hand and a half-eaten slice of birthday cake balanced on a napkin in the other.
She wore a soft cotton dress that slipped slightly off one shoulder, and from where I stood, I could see the edge of her lavender tattoo peeking out, inked just below her collarbone.
A delicate trail of purple buds, the stems curling like they were still growing.
I thought of how many times I had traced it with my fingers, learning its shape, understanding what it meant to feel steady with someone again.
I sat beside her, draping a blanket across our legs, letting the swing rock gently beneath us.
“Did you see Emerson’s face when I gave her a copy of the book?” I smiled.
Olivia grinned and took a sip of wine. “Honestly, I never thought I’d see the day Emerson Coleman was rendered speechless.”
“I hope she likes it,” I said. “I hope they all do.”
“They will,” Olivia said, with the kind of quiet certainty I hadn’t heard in a long time, the kind I used to hear when I read my poems aloud to Lucy. The kind that made me believe I could do and write anything. “You are the most thoughtful person I know.”
I leaned toward her, and she pressed a kiss to my lips. “Happy birthday,” she whispered, and it was soft, happiness pouring from one soul to the next.
“Thank you,” I murmured. “For everything.”
She tilted her head, looking at me curiously.
“When Lucy died, it left a gaping hole inside me,” I began. “I felt as if all the light had been snuffed out, and I was left stumbling around in the dark, trying to find it again.”
Olivia reached for my hand. “I know what you mean,” she said softly. “Loss does that. I’ve been in the darkness for a long time myself.”
“Being with you, it feels like the world isn’t so dark anymore. I feel sparks of joy, moments when I can actually smile and mean it. You’ve given me hope that it’s possible to move forward.”
A small smile played at the corners of her mouth and she reached out, tracing her thumb along my lips. “You give me that too,” she whispered. “We’re finding our way out of the darkness together.”
“Maybe you’re my second chance,” I replied.
She leaned in and kissed me again, slower this time. “Only if you’re mine.”
As we sat, swaying slightly, the stars seemed softer, like spring was slowly starting to stretch open, reminding us that, despite our past, we had found something beautiful in each other.
I had learned many things from Everston, but the most important of them all was that, rather than running from grief, I was supposed to feel all of it—the pain, the suffering, the unending waves of heartache.
There was no time limit on when the anguish would end and the healing would begin, because they were intertwined.
One day I woke up in the morning and could see how far I’d moved along the road.
That’s what living with grief was: you just had to keep moving.