45. Emerson
EMERSON
It’s the last day of July.
Another month, coming and going, and I’m finally realizing how I’m letting time pass—wishing it away—when I’m still lucky enough to have it.
I feel like I’ve been looking at the world through frosted glass—for months. Until today.
It’s like the haze has finally cracked, and I can see the day for what it is.
The sky stretched pale blue above the lake as we drive over the bridge, heading towards the cemetery. It’s streaked with thin clouds that drift lazily across the horizon.
Sunlight filters through the trees, catching on leaves so green they almost hurt to look at.
Crew is humming along to the song playing on the radio; Mateo’s hand is in my lap, our fingers interlocked as he drives, and there’s only a small, almost nonexistent part of me that isn’t taking advantage of the moment.
When Mateo told me what happened to Crew yesterday, I don’t know how I stayed standing.
My body was fighting to move—to get to him, get to the hospital, see that he was okay with my own eyes—but I couldn’t move.
It was like my feet were glued to the ground, like I was punishing myself for the time I spent trying to disappear while the world outside kept spinning.
After I finally got the tears to stop, Mateo stayed with me for the rest of the day.
He lingered in the bathroom, passing me toothpaste to brush my teeth, sitting on the bathroom floor while he waited for me.
He made sure I was drinking water, handing me glass after glass throughout the afternoon and into the evening, watching me take every last sip.
And when he ordered dinner, he didn’t even ask me what I wanted—just ordered an entire menu of food.
The first bite was like swallowing sand, but then my hunger registered, and I cleared at least two plates in a matter of minutes.
We barely talked. Not until I asked if he'd come with me to see my mom.
It was such a simple question, but it felt like one of the hardest things I'd ever said.
He said yes before I could second-guess myself.
And when I fell asleep against him, for the first time in a long time, I didn't feel completely alone.
Mateo pulls into the parking lot of the cemetery, turning off the car before he squeezes my hand, and I lift my gaze to his.
“Are you ready?” he asks, and I hear Crew shift in his seat, feel his little blue eyes on me.
I shake my head, the tears threatening to fall… Again.
It’s like a dam broke, and I’m making up for years and years of holding them back—crying at the smallest thing.
But it feels good.
Which sounds silly. Stupid even.
But crying for me has been cathartic, a physical release. Allowing me to feel the feelings I’ve been burying for weeks, months, years.
“It’s okay, Ems,” Crew says, and I turn around when I hear a small sniffle. His eyes are glassy as he looks at me, and old habits die hard.
Instinct immediately takes over for a moment, and I go to wipe my eyes with my fingers, trying to let go of Mateo’s hand, but he holds tight.
I pull a little harder, but he doesn’t even budge.
Making people cry is like my own personal hell.
Watching someone else's tears, knowing I'm the reason they're hurting, feels like a punishment specifically designed for me.
Every instinct I have screams at me to fix it.
Smooth it over. Make a joke. Change the subject.
Do anything to stop looking at the evidence of what I've done.
And now I've somehow managed to make both of them cry.
Crew's eyes are glassy, his little face pinched with concern, and Mateo looks like he's holding himself together through sheer force of will.
The guilt lands hard in my chest.
They're hurting because of me.
I walked into their lives carrying enough grief and denial and pain to almost kill me, and now it's spilling over onto the people I love most.
Part of me wants to run.
The other part—the exhausted, fragile part that's finally too tired to keep pretending—just sits there and lets them see me anyway.
“Don’t hold it in,” Mateo says, grabbing my other hand in his. He looks at Crew. “Tell Ems what we always say, buddy.”
Turning to Crew, I see the grin spread on his face, despite the tears in his eyes.
He’s the kindest, most empathetic little boy I’ve ever known, and sometimes just looking at him makes my chest ache.
Like my heart was never built to hold this much love without splitting at the seams. “You can always cry if you need to,” Crew tells me, “crying just means your feelings need someplace to go.”
I squeeze Mateo’s hand before I let go, reaching for Crew. I hold my palm up to him, and he puts his hand in mine. “Thanks, champ. I really needed to hear that.”
Both boys reach for my hands again the second we step out of the car, their fingers slipping into mine like they’re afraid to let go. They release me only long enough to close the doors before finding my hands again.
The three of us walk through the grass together, hand in hand, and I don’t know if they realize that their presence alone—their hands in mine—is giving me the strength I need to stand. The strength to walk towards the place I’ve been avoiding for months.
I haven’t been back to this cemetery since my mom’s funeral, but it’s like my feet know exactly where to take me.
I still haven’t seen her headstone, having refused to even look at it for the entire burial.
But today, my eyes scan the field of so many loved ones and the place we go to feel close to them, looking for hers.
The trees rustle in the distance as we walk, and it feels like the ground is shifting beneath me, my balance suddenly unsteady the closer we get.
And then I see it, in the distance, a little too far to make out what’s engraved on the stone, or maybe it’s because of the blur in my vision.
When we reach the headstone, I instantly fall to my knees, all of the air rushing out of my lungs, the entire world around me completely disappearing.
Angela Hastings
Mother and Grandmother
I’m overwhelmed with memories—memories of my mom that don't come back in big, perfect moments but in pieces.
The sound of her humming while she cooked dinner, the way she'd sing along to songs she didn't know all the words to, the smell of her perfume lingering on the sweaters she let me steal.
How fiercely she loved. Me, Jack, Rumi and Evee.
I remember the warmth of her hand wrapped around mine when I was little, her laugh filling up a room before I even knew what was funny, the way she always knew when something was wrong before I said a word.
I remember late nights on the couch, her bringing in a plate of cookies after dinner because there’s always room for dessert, the way she made ordinary days feel important just because she was there.
For a long time, I thought I'd forget the little things—the tiny moments that didn't seem like they mattered when they were happening. The moments she wasn’t sick.
But those are the ones that stayed. The pieces of her that still exist somewhere inside me, even after everything else has changed.
Mateo kneels beside me, and I feel Crew’s presence on my other side, their hands still in mine. Holding me together when it feels like I’m completely falling apart.
I don’t know how long the three of us stay like this, but it’s long enough to leave imprints of the strands of grass in my knees.
“I didn’t realize how much I needed to come here,” I whisper, and I let my hands fall from theirs, brushing my fingertips over the headstone, tracing the words “mother” and “grandmother” as my tears drop one-by-one into the grass. “I shouldn’t have waited this long.”
“You’re here now, baby,” Mateo offers. “That’s what matters.”
“You haven’t been here before?” Crew asks softly.
I turn to look at him, his wavy hair tied back with small strands escaping, blowing in the breeze. I reach for one, tucking it behind his ear. Shaking my head, I answer, “No. Not since her funeral.”
“When was her funeral?” Crew asks.
“Last November.”
He lets the answer sit between us all for a moment before asking, “What is a funeral?”
It catches me so off-guard, I instantly let out a chuckle, a small smile spreading over my lips, and I hear Mateo muffle a laugh behind me.
Crew looks at us like we’re the crazy ones, a slight raise of one brow.
When the laughter finally fades, I answer, “It’s the day you say goodbye.”
Crew looks from me to the headstone and then back at me. “Why are you saying goodbye if you live so close?”
I don’t know what I was expecting him to say, but it wasn’t that. My smile fades slightly as I let out a sigh. “You’re right, champ. I do live really close.”
“So we should come visit more.” His voice is so matter-of-fact, like there’s nothing more obvious. “Then it’s not really like we’re saying goodbye.”
We.
The word catches me off-guard.
Because for so long, this place had only ever existed as a reminder of what I lost. A place I refused to revisit. A place I avoided because it felt easier to stay away than to admit how much I still missed her.
How much a part of me was still stuck on the day I had to say goodbye.
But Crew doesn't see it that way.
To him, it's simple.
My mom is here. I am here. And now he and Mateo are here too.
There’s no fear attached to it. No months of grief weighing the word down. Just a little boy offering the kind of love I never knew I needed.
We.
It’s such a small word.
But it means everything.
I turn over my shoulder, finding Mateo’s eyes. “We can come visit anytime you want,” he says, pressing a kiss to my forehead before setting a bouquet of flowers in front of the headstone.
I didn’t even realize he was carrying them.
And it’s in this moment—here with his hand in mine, with Crew beside me, with my mother’s name carved into stone—that I finally stop fighting it.
I let myself feel what I’ve been trying to ignore for so long.
Love.
I am in love with Mateo Lane.
I love him with every fiber of my being.
Every breath. Every heartbeat. Every piece of my soul.
With all that I am. All that I’ve been. All that I’ll ever become.