Chapter 22
Henry
For a long time after my brother’s death, I could still see him.
Sometimes he was standing in the doorway, other times it was as though he had passed me by in the street, or I’d catch glimpses of him between the aisles of the library.
It felt like he was somehow visiting me, like a ghost, if you believe in those sorts of things.
I wasn’t sure why, but one day I stopped seeing him.
It was as though he had died all over again.
Last night I dreamed of Winnie. We were all together.
I was standing in her kitchen helping her make her famous chicken pot pie.
Emerson sat at the dining table, deep in a board game with Wren and Olivia, their laughter carrying through the room.
Gill and Julian were wrapped in conversation with Bobby, their voices blending into the background, while Max and Rita were giggling over something indistinguishable.
It was simple—celebrating the new year, wrapped in the kind of comfort that comes from knowing you belong.
But now, there would be no more chicken pot pie, not the way she made it.
No more evenings with her, no more of her wry humor, her knowing glances, her way of making everything feel electric and steady at the same time.
We would never be together again. And that’s what grief is, isn’t it?
It’s missing everything about a person in a way that hurts the most.
“Are you okay?”
I blinked at the screen I had been staring at and looked at Wren.
“Yes,” I said, shaking my head slightly. “Sorry, I was just lost for a moment.”
“I’m sorry,” she replied. “I don’t know why I am so excited about brass doorknobs, they’re probably the most boring thing on Earth to you.”
I patted her shoulder. “I am thrilled you’ve found the original brass doorknobs for the house. Truly.” I grinned, and then it faded. “I was just thinking about Winnie.”
Wren’s shoulders slumped slightly. “I know,” she replied. “I think about her too.”
I glanced back at the book file on screen, the final version of Thinking of You, ready to be uploaded.
We’d managed to collect everyone’s poems early, without too many questions.
Rita, of course, had peppered me with suspicions about the sudden deadline, and I’d sheepishly told her it was to get everything cleared by the library board.
“I feel guilty you’re helping me with this,” Wren said. “You’re at work, after all.”
I scanned the nearly empty library. “Do you see any patrons begging for my expertise right now?”
She looked around, then shook her head. “Well…no.”
“Then let’s just get this book uploaded and ordered,” I said. “This is going to be a nice surprise for the group.”
“Thank you for looking at this,” Wren said. “I honestly feel a little guilty for not helping more with all the admin.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Wren, I’m a librarian. Admin is literally my job. Besides, you were putting together a whole book. Perhaps a new career path for you?”
A nervous smile tugged at her mouth, but as we finalized the upload, something shifted in her expression. She had done everything herself—it was formatted, structured, polished. All I’d done was offer a few thoughts and figure out how to print the thing. And honestly? She’d barely needed my help.
“Seriously, Wren, you’re good at this,” I said, watching the progress bar load. “I’m impressed you knew how to do it all, and I’m even more impressed with your writing.”
She hesitated, fiddling with the sleeve of her sweater. “Maybe it’s what I did…in another life.”
Something about her tone made me pause. Wren was sharp and quick, but the moment anything related to publishing or writing came up, she went quiet.
Distant. I didn’t know why, but I knew better than to press.
If you pressed Wren, she may very well disappear.
I turned back to the screen to look at the cover art.
I’d contacted Merrill, a local artist, to create an illustration for the book cover, a raven and a bluebird together, as envisioned by Wren.
“I love this drawing,” Wren said softly.
“Me too,” I replied. “I’ve liked helping with this project, you know, even if only a little.”
“You’re a natural. Maybe you should work in book publishing?”
I smiled. “Jacob always thought that I’d make a good editor,” I admitted, leaning back slightly. “I always wanted to be a librarian, but editing would’ve been a great job too.”
“Why can’t you be both?”
I waved my hand. “I can’t say I know too many authors, much less any who would need my editing services,” I replied.
That was the moment she pulled away again. It was like she was physically still in the room, but her mind was elsewhere, somewhere she didn’t want to go.
“Done,” I said. “Now we wait.”
She let out a slow breath, as if letting go of something heavier than just the book.
“Now we wait,” she echoed.
A moment of silence settled between us before Wren finally spoke again. “I’m doing the right thing, aren’t I? This book, it was meant as a gift, but I’m not sure how it will be received.”
“I think it’s special,” I replied. “And more than that, Wren, I know it meant something to you to write it. That matters, too, doesn’t it?”
She studied me for a moment, like there was something she wanted to say but couldn’t seem to find the words to say it.
“You know, Max used to say to me, ‘Other people’s grief doesn’t belong to me,’ ” I said.
“Max is very wise.” Wren grinned.
“He is,” I replied. “But I think it can be both. Other people’s grief doesn’t belong to us, but maybe it helps us to find belonging in each other.”
Suddenly, the library door opened and my wiry sculptor friend strolled in. I sunk so low in my chair, I nearly slid right off. Next to me, Wren immediately ducked down with a look of pure confusion.
“What is it?” she whispered, her voice a flurry of urgency.
“The sculptor,” I hissed, nodding toward the growing collection of his “art” cluttering the front desk.
Wren peeked over the desk, eyes scanning the ever-growing lineup—FrankenFrog, of course, plus an owl wearing a tiny wizard hat, and a cat with an impressively coifed mustache.
“Oh dear,” she murmured, her shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter.
“Shhh!” I shot her a desperate look. But it was too late.
“Ah, Henry!” The sculptor—whose name I’d only recently learned was Otis—strode toward the counter with his latest masterpiece: a lumpy teapot with feet.
“Thought I’d bring you something special. What do you say, waive a few more of those late fees?”
Wren and I exchanged a long, pointed look—her eyes sparkling with amusement, mine filled with suffering.
“You know,” Wren said, smiling. “This might be the best one yet.”
Otis puffed out his chest, beaming.
And for a moment, everything felt a little lighter.
I was elbow-deep in coffee machine parts, battling a clogged filter and wondering why caffeine held such power over humanity (especially where there was literally a café across the road), when I heard my name.
“Henry!”
I turned to see Olivia standing in the doorway, breathless, her cheeks flushed from what I guessed was a brisk walk, or a maybe a quick sprint.
“I found you,” she said, as if she’d been searching the entire town.
“Well, where else would I be?” I replied, straightening up and wiping my hands on a towel. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said quickly, then added, “Well, not nothing. But not urgent either. I need your advice.”
She was worked up more than usual, and her tone carried a kind of nervous energy.
“I need help to make a choice,” she continued, stepping into the room. “And considering it’s your fault I even joined this grief group in the first place, I’m making you the one to do it.”
I stared at her, baffled. “Olivia, what in all of the San Juan Mountains are you talking about?”
I’d never said that phrase in my life. It wasn’t even a real phrase. Clearly, I was spending too much time around emotionally charged middle schoolers and broken appliances.
“My redemption arc,” she said with an exaggerated sigh, and then—ignoring all protocol—she plopped herself down on one of the staff room chairs.
I glanced nervously at the door. If Lana or Dev walked in and saw Olivia commandeering our little break room, I’d never hear the end of it.
She slapped two hefty binders on the table in front of her, their spines labeled in bold black marker.
“What are these?” I asked, wiping coffee bean residue off my hands. I really hated the stuff.
“Two stories,” she replied, her voice quieter now. “One is a story that could get me the anchor job at the station. The other…well, the other is a puff piece. But it’s mine. I love it.”
I sat down across from her, reaching for the first binder. She swatted my hand away with a glare.
“I have to choose,” she said firmly.
“Well, that’s easy. Choose the one that gets you the job,” I said, as if the answer were obvious.
Her face fell, as though she was devastated at my suggestion.
“Why wouldn’t you?” I asked, genuinely confused. “Are you okay?”
She sighed, leaning back in the chair, her hands falling to her lap. “No,” she said softly, almost like she didn’t mean for me to hear. “I think I’m falling in love.”
I blinked, utterly lost. “I see…”
“The first story,” she continued, her voice gaining strength, “could hurt someone I’ve come to care deeply about. The second story…it’s about the grief group. It’s about how it has changed my life.”
I stared at her and, for a moment, the noise of the coffee machine and the chaos of the library faded into the background.
Here was Olivia, this ambitious reporter—steadfast and strong—but she hadn’t started out that way, not here.
When she first came to the grief group, she showed up sporadically, always late, lingering near the edges like she wasn’t sure she wanted to stay.
She rarely spoke, and when she did, her words were guarded, unsure if she was ready to share.
It had taken her a long time to open up, to let us in.
But now…now she was someone who leaned in to the vulnerability, who showed up every week, on time, ready to listen and be heard.
She loved everyone in the group in the way only someone who’d lived through pain could.
And Olivia had known pain. I’d heard enough of her stories about her mother to know that life hadn’t always been kind to her.
But here she was, flourishing. Stronger.
Braver. And she was saying, out loud, that the group had been a part of that.
I felt something swell in my chest—pride, warmth, maybe even gratitude for her honesty.
“Well,” I said carefully, “sometimes people get hurt in life.”
“Oh, not like this,” she murmured.
“You’ve worked so hard for your career, Olivia,” I continued. “You’ve wanted to be the anchor at HCB for so long. I know how much it means to you.”
She sighed, her eyes clouding with uncertainty. “It does mean a lot,” she admitted. “All I ever wanted was to be out of my mother’s shadow. But the group means a lot too.”
I hesitated, my voice softening. “Which one are you going to choose?”
She reached across the table and placed her hand over mine. Her touch was steady, her gaze earnest.
“You really are remarkable, Henry,” she said, her lips curving into a soft smile. “I hope the world knows that someday.”
“I’m just trying to help,” I replied, though the words felt inadequate.
“And you do,” she said. “More than you know.”
For a moment, it looked like she might say more, but instead she pulled her hand back, stood up, and gathered the binders into her arms.
“Sometimes,” she said, pausing in the doorway, “it’s not about choosing the right story. It’s about figuring out who you are in the middle of it.”
I opened my mouth to reply, but she didn’t wait for an answer. And with that, she was gone, leaving me sitting there, unsure which story she meant or what decision she’d made.