Chapter 42 Diane
Diane
OCTOBER
I wake to the scent of salt and burnt sugar. It takes me a minute to orient myself. My mind is still half-tangled in the dream where the three of us stand at the edge of the sea, but every time I reach for Cassie, she vanishes into foam.
The kettle is already screaming on the stove by the time I stumble into the kitchen. Cassie sits at the breakfast table, arms folded, staring at the linoleum like it holds the secret to a happy life.
“Morning,” I say, and it comes out like a cough.
She shrugs, which is teenager for “go away,” but I take it as a win.
I pour the water, spilling a little on the counter, and the hiss reminds me that every day is just a series of tiny messes you learn to clean up.
I reach for the coffee, shaking the tin over the filter, and realize my hands are trembling.
Not from caffeine. From the anticipation of everything that might go wrong before 9:00 a.m.
“Cereal?” I ask, but Cassie’s already poured herself a bowl of Froot Loops, the colors bleeding into milk that looks like an art project gone wrong.
“I have a math test tomorrow,” she mumbles. “And a science project due Tuesday.”
I want to say something reassuring, but all I manage is, “You’ll do great.” The words hit the table and roll away.
Through the window, I can see Sara’s garden, a riot of wild violets and neglected raspberry canes, the trellis listing to one side like a shipwreck. I imagine us out there, three mismatched survivors trying to build something that floats.
Nathan is late. I check the oven clock, then the front door, as if he might materialize just by thinking hard enough. This is ridiculous. I remind myself I am a grown woman who has lived through far worse than an awkward breakfast.
Still, my fingers tap out Morse code on the Formica: anxious, anxious, anxious.
Cassie doesn’t look up from her cereal. She segregates the colored rings into separate piles, picking through the loops with a calculated economy of movement.
I want to reach across the table and take her hand, but I know better.
The last time I tried, she pulled away like I was the one on fire.
In the wake of Sara’s death, Cassie has built an invisible wall around herself, one that I can’t seem to penetrate.
Nathan arrives with the wind, the door slamming behind him. He’s carrying a bag of bagels and two foam cups, which is so perfectly Nathan that I nearly laugh.
“Sorry I’m late,” he says, his voice too bright, like he’s auditioning for a sitcom dad. “Had to rescue these from the perils of the 7-Eleven bakery section.”
Cassie makes a face but takes a bagel when offered. Progress.
Nathan sits across from her, unwrapping a cinnamon raisin and slathering it with the tiny packet of cream cheese. He looks at me, eyes flicking from my face to the coffee mug to the dark blue sweater I pulled from the laundry basket because it still smells faintly of last night’s ocean air.
“Rough morning?” he asks.
I glance at Cassie, then back to him. “You could say that.”
He smiles, and there is a genuine warmth beneath the forced cheer. “I once set an entire kitchen towel on fire trying to impress a girl with my omelet skills. This”—he gestures to the breakfast spread—“is an improvement.”
Cassie snorts, and a crumb shoots from her mouth onto the table. She blushes, then immediately reverts to neutral.
Nathan turns to her, as if this is a normal family scene. “How’s the science project coming? Need a hand?”
She recoils, just slightly. “I can do it myself.”
“Bug,” I say, my tone slipping into the careful register of post-trauma parenting, “manners.”
“Please don’t call me that,” she mutters, “and I don’t need help.”
Nathan nods, unoffended. “Copy that.”
My eyes drift to the far end of the kitchen, where the manuscript pages are stacked next to my laptop, binder-clipped into a lopsided sheaf.
I left them out as a kind of dare to myself: Finish this or admit you never will.
The top page is crumpled at one corner, stained with what might be wine or maybe just hope.
Cassie’s gaze follows mine. “Did you stay up writing again?”
I nod, sheepish. “I got a little carried away.”
She makes a sound, almost a laugh. “You always do.”
Nathan glances at the stack, then back at me. “How’s it going?”
I hesitate. I don’t want to talk about it for the same reason you don’t poke a sleeping bear—it might wake up. “Better,” I manage to say.
He raises his mug, a salute. “To better.”
Cassie eyes him, skepticism and curiosity in equal measure.
Nathan tries again, softer this time. “If you ever want a break from homework, I could show you how to make one of those baking soda volcanoes. Pure chaos. No grading involved.”
The corners of her mouth twitch, the urge to smile stomped down before it can break the surface.
“We used to do those,” she says, barely audible. “When I was little.”
Nathan’s voice is gentle. “I bet yours would put mine to shame.”
Cassie shrugs. “Maybe.”
I want to say something, anything, to keep the bridge from collapsing. But I’m afraid of stepping wrong and watching the whole thing fall.
It’s Nathan who finally breaks the tension. He pushes back from the table, brushing the crumbs from his hands. “You know,” he says, “Sara used to let me help in the garden. She always said the dirtier your hands, the better the flowers.”
Cassie’s face flickers, grief and loyalty in an impossible tangle.
“We could plant something today,” he adds, the suggestion so tentative it barely lands. “You know, for her.”
Cassie looks to me for permission.
I nod, and the smallest of smiles sneaks onto her face, gone in an instant but still there.
“Okay,” she says. “I guess.”
It’s not forgiveness, not exactly. But it’s something.
Nathan grins. “I’ll get the gloves.”
When he leaves the room, Cassie looks at me, her walls dropped for just a breath.
“You’re really happy with him,” she says. Not a question. A dare.
I want to be honest. I want to be brave, like Sara said.
“I’m trying,” I say. “Some days, it’s easier than others.”
Cassie stares at her cereal, then stirs it with the spoon until the colors are indistinguishable.
“Okay,” she says again, even softer.
Nathan’s laugh echoes from the hallway. I can picture him fumbling with the garden shed, cursing under his breath, determined to win her over one awkward moment at a time.
I gather the dishes, stacking them in the sink, and watch as Cassie steps out onto the porch. Sunlight catches the edge of her hair, and she stands there, arms folded, waiting for whatever comes next.
I used to think the hardest part of being a mother was sleeplessness, the way it rendered you raw and brittle, an exposed nerve walking around in borrowed skin.
I was wrong. The hardest part is hope. You plant it in the best dirt you can find, water it with every last molecule of wanting, and then wait—knowing the frost could come at any time, that something hungry might burrow in and hollow it out.
The garden is a testament to both: weeds and wildflowers, thriving side by side.
Sara’s fingerprints are everywhere, on the cracked ceramic gnome that guards the strawberry bed, the shell wind chimes strung above the rain barrel, the clusters of bluebells that only she could coax from the stubborn sand.
I kneel in the damp earth and try not to think about what it means to love something so much it hurts.
Nathan is already at work, sleeves rolled up, dirt smudged across the bridge of his nose like a battle stripe.
He moves with careful efficiency, digging small holes for the flats of marigolds and morning glories we bought at the roadside stand.
Every few minutes, he glances at me as if afraid I might dissolve.
Cassie trails us, carrying a bag of bulbs, but mostly she just drags her feet, leaving deep furrows in the mulch. She won’t make eye contact, but I catch her staring at Nathan’s back, her expression complicated and unreadable.
I try for normalcy. “Cass… I mean, Cassie, can you pass me the trowel?”
She sets it on the ground next to me, as if proximity itself might be contagious.
“Thanks,” I say, and she shrugs, then busies herself picking slugs off the hostas and flicking them into the grass.
A bead of sweat slips down my temple, stinging in the open cut above my eyebrow, the remnant of an argument with the attic hatch last week. I wipe it away with the hem of my sleeve and focus on the rhythm of work.
Nathan crouches beside me, balancing a tray of pansies. “I read somewhere that these help keep bugs away,” he says, nudging the edge of a joke.
I give him half a smile. “Sara would say you’re full of it.”
We work quietly. Above us, the clouds stack up like wet laundry, promising rain but not quite delivering. Cassie circles the periphery, every motion telegraphing her reluctance to belong.
Then it happens.
Nathan reaches for the trowel at the same time Cassie does, their hands colliding in the dirt. Cassie jerks back as if stung, the bag of bulbs tumbling from her grip and scattering like spilled secrets. She knocks over a potted fern, the clay shattering on the flagstone.
“Shit,” she says, too loud.
I start to say, “It’s okay,” but Cassie cuts me off, voice trembling.
“This isn’t even your house!” she yells at Nathan, fists balled at her sides. “You can’t just…come in and pretend like it is.”
The words hang in the air, sharp as a thrown knife.
Nathan’s face goes pale. He stands, brushing dirt from his palms, but doesn’t move closer. “You’re right,” he says, his voice steady but brittle. “I’m sorry. I overstepped.”
Cassie blinks, surprised by his concession. She looks at me, pleading for an ally, but I am still caught between the urge to protect and the need to let her fight her own battles.
I kneel next to her in the dirt, putting a hand on her shoulder. She doesn’t pull away, but she doesn’t lean in, either.
“Cassie,” I say, “he’s not trying to take over. He’s just…trying to help.”
She stares at the broken pot, breathing hard. “I don’t need help.”
I want to tell her that needing help doesn’t make her weak, but I can see in her hunched shoulders that she’s heard it all before. Instead, I just sit with her, letting the silence do what words can’t.
Nathan kneels by the wreckage, gathering shards of clay with careful hands. He looks at Cassie, then at me, and I see fear on his face. Not for himself, but for us.
“She needs time,” he says quietly, more to himself than to me.
“So do I,” I say
He returns to planting, doesn’t force the conversation, doesn’t try to fix the unfixable. He just keeps working, hands steady in the earth.
The clouds finally open, a soft mist settling over the garden. It beads on Cassie’s eyelashes, turns the dirt to mud beneath our knees.
Cassie stands, wiping her hands on her jeans. She stares at the muddy smears, then at me, then at Nathan. “I’m going for a walk.”
“Do you want company?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “No. I’ll take Rolo with me.”
I watch Cassie’s retreating form, her hair wet and wild, arms swinging with a defiance that looks so much like my own.
I want to follow her, to drag her back and make her sit in the dirt and plant something that will last. But I know that isn’t how anything grows.
Instead, I kneel beside Nathan and help him tamp down the soft, damp earth. For a while, we don’t speak. The work is enough. When the beds are full, we sit on the edge of the porch and let the rain wash our hands clean.
The wind chimes rattle above us. Through the open window, I can hear Sara’s favorite song playing faintly from the stereo, the record crackling like distant thunder.
“She’ll come back,” Nathan says. “She always does.”
I want to believe him.
I close my eyes and listen to the rain. I can almost hear Sara laughing, mocking our crooked rows and uneven spacing, but proud anyway.
When I open them, the world is greener than it was before.
I touch Nathan’s hand, let it rest there a second longer than necessary, then stand and go after my daughter, following the line of footprints she left in the wet grass. Each one an imperfect echo of my own.