15. Home Again, Josie! #2
The kitchen looked almost untouched by everything that had happened beyond its walls.
The same oak table where they'd done homework as girls, the same faded curtains their mother had sewn by hand years ago, the cast-iron pans still hanging above the stove in their familiar row.
Even the little ceramic cookie jar shaped like a chicken sat exactly where it always had.
Josie crossed the room and rested trembling fingers against it. "I broke this once."
Liz laughed softly. "You were ten. I remember Mama yelling for a solid hour. I must have been six, hiding under the table."
"Mom glued it back together."
"She said it had 'character' after that."
The sisters shared a brief, fragile smile before the silence crept back in.
"This place is incredible," Jay said, taking it in.
Liz glanced around the room she'd fought so hard to preserve. "It's still standing."
After everyone had warmed up with coffee and a quick meal of canned stew, Liz offered to show them around. "If we're going to have this many people here," she said, "you should know what we've got."
They pulled their coats back on and stepped outside, where the ranch stretched peacefully beneath the fresh snow.
"It isn't much," Liz admitted as they crossed toward the barn, "but it's enough."
She slid open the weathered door, and two horses immediately lifted their heads: a chestnut mare and an aging gray gelding.
Josie's eyes instantly filled with tears. "Daisy..."
The mare walked straight to her without hesitation, and Josie buried her face against the animal's warm neck. "I thought..." Her voice broke. "I thought I'd lost you too."
The mare huffed softly into her hair as if in answer.
"I almost let them go," Liz said, stroking the gray gelding's neck. "But I couldn't. They deserved better."
“You keep them safe all this time?"
Liz nodded. "They're old; But they're family."
She pointed toward the far paddock, where a handful of shaggy goats wandered through the snow, nibbling at hay she'd scattered earlier that morning. "The goats are still around too. They've actually done pretty well out here. Stubborn things."
A small laugh broke through Josie's tears. "Well, they were Mom's."
"They still are."
They continued walking the property together. The greenhouse and the orchard stood dormant and bare against the gray sky. Then they reached the garden.
Even buried beneath months of snow, Josie recognized every row and every path. Her mother's kingdom, sleeping but not gone.
Liz stood quietly beside her for a long moment. "I'm going to get Mama's garden going in the spring."
Josie looked over at her, and Liz smiled through fresh tears. "She loved this place too much to let it die." She pointed toward the empty beds, mapping them out from memory. "Tomatoes there. Beans. Squash along that side. The strawberries are probably still alive under all of this."
"I hope so." Josie swallowed hard. "She always told us a garden was like saying a prayer for tomorrow."
Liz nodded slowly. "She always said you plant it anyway. For the chance."
Silence settled between them while snowflakes drifted down from the branches overhead. Then Liz turned toward her sister, and her smile faded.
"So... tell me about Mark."
Everything inside Josie seemed to deflate at once. She'd known the question would come eventually—she just hadn't been ready for it. She looked down at her boots, and the word caught in her throat before she could force it out.
"He... he got sick."
Liz's face fell. "When?"
"The first week." Josie stared out across the white pasture, her voice growing distant and unnervingly calm. "I came home from the hospital and found him on the bathroom floor. There was blood. So much blood." She closed her eyes. "I knew. I knew before he even looked at me."
Liz reached for her hand.
Tears slipped silently down Josie's cheeks. "He kept apologizing," she said. "For getting sick, of all things. He worried about me. Worried about Layla. He kept saying..." She swallowed against the lump rising in her throat. "'Take care of our little girl.'"
Liz covered her mouth. "Oh, Jo..."
"I held his hand all night." Her breathing turned ragged.
"I listened to it change. I counted every breath.
" She looked down at her own hands, as if she could still feel his.
"I checked his pulse every few minutes, even though I knew.
" A bitter laugh escaped her. "He asked if Layla was asleep, and I lied.
I said yes." Her shoulders shook. "She was hiding downstairs. I'd told her Daddy just had the flu."
Liz wrapped both arms around her sister and held on.
"I couldn't save him," Josie whispered into her shoulder. "I spent my whole life saving other people's husbands." Her voice shattered. "And I couldn't save my own."
"No." Liz pulled back just enough to look her in the eyes. "You stop that right now."
"I should've—"
"No. You stop carrying that." She cupped Josie's face exactly the way their mother used to, firm and gentle all at once.
"You loved him. You stayed. You didn't leave him to face it alone.
He knew you loved him." Her voice held steady despite her own grief.
"And he died knowing you would move heaven and earth to keep Layla safe. He knew who he married."
Josie sobbed openly then—not because the pain had lessened, but because his name was real again on someone else's lips.
For the first time, she wasn't the only one left to remember.
Leaning into her sister, she felt the simple truth of it: he hadn't become just another number.
He was Mark. A husband. A father. Loved.