“Every day”, I said.
If your mother is reading this, it means she has found her way.
Later, I opened the letter Liam had left them.
He told Ava to keep asking questions.
He told Ben to be nice, but not to the point where people would take advantage of him.
He told them both that taking care of their mother did not mean hiding their sadness.
At the bottom of the page, he wrote: “If your mother is reading this, it means she has found her way. I knew I would make it”.
On the first anniversary of the accident, another rainy Thursday, I hit the road for the first time since Liam’s death, to the bend outside the town.
I brought flowers.
I picked it up and smiled through tears.
I stayed there, under the drizzle, looking at the railing, the road, the place where everything changed.
Then I caught a glimpse of something half buried in the mud.
A small metal washer.
There were still traces of blue paint stuck to one of the edges.
A piece of Liam’s old keychain.
I picked it up and smiled through tears.
Not because everything was cured.
“We have turned dinner into breakfast.”
Because Liam had left me a clue, and I followed her.
When I got home, Ava and Ben were waiting for me at the kitchen table with some pancakes that had gone wrong. They were uneven, half burned and soaked in syrup.
Ava smiled. “We have dinner and breakfast”.
Ben raised his chin. “Mine is only burned on one side.”
I looked at the record in the palm of my hand.
Then Ava saw my face and asked, “Dad helped you find the wrong part of the story?”.
I looked at the record in the palm of my hand.
Ryan was Grace’s ex-husband. According to Grace, he had disappeared from her life years ago.
