Chapter 31
The door creaked open, light spilling into the room and dragging me up from a sleep that felt thick and endless. I blinked awake, cotton-mouthed and disoriented, the world swimming before the familiar scent of pine and woodsmoke grounded me again.
Junie stood in the doorway wearing one of Ty’s old Hudson Hardware T-shirts, the faded navy fabric hanging past her knees like a dress. Her blonde hair was damp, curling in little ringlets around her ears the way Violet’s used to. She looked so much like her mom, it stole my breath.
“Hi,” Junie said with a smile that looked as fragile as I felt. She carried a wooden tray balanced in both small hands.
Ty stood behind her, broad shoulders filling the doorframe. He hesitated, just long enough to scan the room like he was taking inventory of what grief had rearranged, then nodded once. “Can we come in?”
I pushed myself up, the sheet sliding to my waist. At some point, I’d changed out of my clothes and into Ty’s old hoodie, but I didn’t remember doing it. My eyes felt swollen, my cheeks tight with salt, but I scooted over and patted the mattress. “Yeah, cutie. Come here.”
Junie set the tray down on my lap with exaggerated care, then climbed up like a little mountain goat—knees and elbows everywhere. She settled cross-legged in the middle of the bed, the hem of the hardware shirt pooling around her like a security blanket.
“I made you mac and cheese,” she announced proudly. “Well, Ty helped with the stove part because I’m not allowed yet. But I stirred the sauce.”
Behind her, Ty shrugged. “She’s a pro at the cheese-to-noodle ratio.”
“Thank you, Junie.” My voice cracked on her name. I leaned over and kissed her forehead, breathing in the smell of my strawberry shampoo she liked to use. “That was so nice of you.”
Junie studied me over the rims of her glasses, waiting for me to take a bite. When I didn’t move fast enough, she asked in a small, careful voice, “Are you sick?”
The words landed like a fist to the sternum.
How many times had Junie been the only one there when Violet couldn’t get out of bed?
How many times had she carried trays just like this one?
“No, sweet girl.” I set the tray to the side and pulled her into my lap. She came willingly, all long limbs and warm skin, curling into me like she was still the baby I remembered. “I’m not sick. I’m just sad. I miss your mom a lot today.”
Junie nodded against my shoulder, small fist twisting in my hoodie. “I miss her too,” she whispered into my collarbone. “Sometimes I forget for a little while and then I remember and it hurts again. Do you think it will ever stop?”
This kid.
My body had wrung itself dry hours ago but my face burned with unshed tears anyway.
I pressed my lips to her hair. “I don’t know, cutie.
I hope it gets quieter. I think it will.
” I pulled back just enough to look at her.
“And on the days it’s loud again? That doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong. ”
Ty still hovered near the doorway, watching us with that steady presence he had. Knowing he’d be better at this than me, I patted the empty side of the bed.
He crossed the room and climbed up on Junie’s other side. The mattress dipped under his weight. He lay on his side propped on one elbow, leaving a careful few inches of space between us, like he still wasn’t sure he was invited into this moment.
But Junie had no such reservations. She wriggled until she was the filling in our sandwich—head on my chest, feet kicking lazily against Ty’s shins, one small hand reaching across to rest on his forearm like she needed to touch both of us to be comfortable.
None of us said anything for a moment, and the silence felt heavy.
I cleared my throat. “You know what Vi would hate most in the universe?” I said, surprised at how almost-steady I sounded. “Us sitting around being sad and quiet. She always said sad was okay, but quiet was a waste of perfectly good air.”
Junie tilted her head up, glasses slipping down her nose. “So what do we do instead?”
“We tell happy stories,” I decided. “Silly stories. We keep her alive in the parts that made us love her the most. Every time we tell one, she gets a little more real instead of less.”
“Like what?”
“Well,” I said, thinking back on a lifetime of memories with my favorite person, “the summer Violet was ten and I was seven, we moved into a new house. Our garage was full of empty boxes, and your mom saw so much possibility. We spent a whole day taping them together, turning it into a tour bus.”
Ty chuckled, but Junie looked up at me. “Why did you make a tour bus?”
“Obviously we were going to be famous pop stars named The Sparkle Sisters.” I held my palms up in little jazz-hands, and Junie giggled.
“We spent three straight days decorating it—flowers, stars, our fake signatures—until there wasn’t an inch of brown cardboard left.
Every night after dinner we dragged our boom box into the garage, draped ourselves in feather boas, and practiced our choreography. ”
I picked up Junie’s hand, pretending to dance with it. “Your mom loved to dance, didn’t she?”
“She did. We danced a lot.”
“One night we even dragged our sleeping bags inside the biggest box, zipped ourselves in, and slept there, pretending we were on the road to Hollywood. Violet woke me up at three a.m. screaming because a spider had walked across her face. We laughed so hard we almost wet ourselves, then fell back asleep holding hands through the spider trauma.”
Junie giggled so hard she had to push her glasses back up her nose. “Did you really sleep in a box?”
“We absolutely did,” I said, smiling at the memory. “Your mom insisted we needed the authentic experience. Grammy winners don’t sleep in beds, they sleep in luxury tour buses made of refrigerator boxes.”
Junie’s went next, launching into the Easter Violet let her mix the egg dye by herself that ended in disaster when she dyed her arms blue from the elbow down.
Ty idly traced circles on the back of Junie’s hand where it rested on his chest. “The day I met your mom,” he said, “I was convinced my life was over. Hockey career done, body broken, came home to this quiet street to lick my wounds and scare children with my grumpy face.”
Junie poked him in the ribs. “You’re not grumpy.”
“Back then, I was doing my best impression. But she came over with a tray of cookies that looked better than they tasted.”
I snorted.
Junie grinned. “She burned a lot of cookies, but sometimes they were okay.”
“You’re right, bug.” Ty kissed her head. “But do you know what I remember most about that day?”
“What?” Junie asked.
“Behind your mom was this tiny kindergartener with a sand bucket full of wildflowers.” His eyes went soft, the gold flecks catching the last of the hallway light as he brushed her blonde hair off her forehead.
“She looked up at me, squinted real serious, and said, ‘Why do you have a barn if you don’t have any animals?’”
He huffed a quiet laugh. “No hello. No fear. Just immediate disappointment in my life choices. And I remember thinking—well, hell. Guess I better fix that.”
He glanced at me over Junie’s head. Something heavy and unspoken passed between us, landing warm in my chest like a small stone dropped into still water.
Junie yawned, huge and dramatic, and within minutes her breathing evened out—glasses crooked, mouth open, one small hand fisted in my shirt, her legs thrown over Ty’s like he was the world’s largest body pillow.
I reached over and gently slid her glasses off, folding the earpieces and setting them next to the bowl of mac and cheese. The room was dark now, just the silver of moonlight sliding in through the blinds.
Across from us, Violet’s urn caught the light, the floral-painted ceramic seeming far too happy for the reality contained within.
Ty’s hand stilled for half a second at my hip, like he felt it too.
I stared at the urn until my eyes watered again, but no tears came. I was hollowed out, nothing left but ache.
Still, the sight didn’t knife me the way it had last night.
Maybe because Junie’s warm weight anchored me to the mattress, or because Ty’s arm rested across Junie’s back so his big, calloused hand lay on my hip.
Everything still hurt, raw and exposed. Maybe it always would.
But the three of us, together, felt better.
The night kept breathing outside—bullfrogs croaking down by the river, crickets chirring, aspens rustling like they were whispering secrets to the moon.
Ty’s voice came out of the dark, barely louder than the crickets. “That was good, Daisy. She’d be proud of you. Proud of both of you.”
My throat tightened until breathing felt optional. “It didn’t feel good. It felt like ripping open a wound just to stare at it.”
“Sometimes that’s the only way it heals,” he murmured.
I let out a shaky breath that sounded too loud in the quiet. “I don’t feel like I’m healing, Ty. I feel… broken.”
His thumb brushed a slow circle at my hip, steady and grounding. “You’re not broken,” he said, voice fierce and quiet at once. “You’re grieving. There’s a difference.”
That pulled something raw and ugly out of me. “I don’t want to be more weight you have to carry, Ty. You’ve already—”
“Stop.” The single word cracked like a whip, soft as it was. “You are not weight, Daisy. You and this little girl—you’re the reason I get up in the morning. You’re what I dream about when I close my eyes. You’re all I’ve ever wanted, no matter the circumstances this all came to be.”
My eyes prickled again, tears I didn’t think I had left gathering hot and sudden. “What if I fall apart again tomorrow? Next week? Next month?”
“Then I’ll be right here,” he said, no hesitation, no pretty lie. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He paused, forehead lowering closer to mine. “I’m not going anywhere,” he repeated, like he was saying it to himself as much as to me.
Junie stirred, murmuring something about cows in her sleep, and burrowed deeper into both of us, small hands clinging like we were the only solid things in her dreams.
It split me open and stitched me shut in the same breath.
“Ty…” I whispered, not sure what came next.
Thank you.
I’m terrified.
Everything hurts.
You’re too good.
I don’t deserve this.
His hand slid from my hip to the small of my back, palm spread wide and warm, grounding. “It’s okay to crack,” he said again, like a vow. “I’ll hold the pieces until you’re ready to put them back together. However long that takes.”
A long silence settled, soft and full as a down comforter. I closed my eyes and let my forehead rest against his, just above Junie’s curls. The warmth of him, the steady rise and fall of Junie’s breathing between us—it felt like the only place the world wasn’t spinning faster than I could bear.