her grave, silent in the car returning. It was only later that night, after lying in bed in separate crypts of grief, that I broke down, Edward reached for me, and we began to talk. It was about sharing memories of her and yes, sharing dreams of what might have been, because those dreams were valid and couldn’t be ignored. It was also about sharing the pain of loss, understanding that it was different for each of us and, like crows’ feet, could be temporarily hidden but would never be gone.
Our minds had owned that. Our hearts were simply slow catching up.
That was last week. But the very next day, something unexpected happened. I was stunned by the joy I felt, and it wasn’t just an initial pop and fizzle. It lingered, giving each day since a little glow. I might have attributed the glow to autumn in Devon, which was a time of crisp apples, fields full of pumpkins, and leaves every shade of fire, if this glow hadn’t come from deep inside.
I felt it even now, cradled in the hammock on our back lawn, where the river flowed more slowly now that summer was done, and the scent of drying leaves was strong. It was late Sunday afternoon. With barely two hours of daylight left, the sun slanted low over the dried leaves that littered the lawn. My head rested on Edward’s arm. Behind me, his brow to my nape, he snored softly.
Slipping the cell from my pocket, I held it high for a selfie, then looked at the shot and smiled. Sweet, it showed two partial heads, Edward’s lone visible eye shut, mine open, his cheek whiskered, mine clear, our jaws lined by a ruff of fall scarves, mine fuchsia, his heather blue. The air held a chill, though I was perfectly warm where I lay.
Pleased with the moment, feeling strong, I opened Photos and thumbed backward in time through a raft of construction shots. With the bulk of the inside work finished in the main house, the crew had moved on to the carriage house, garage, and mudroom, wanting to frame, roof, and rough those in before snow fell. For the sake of a before-and-after collage, I was documenting it all.
The shot I was looking for had nothing to do with home renovation. Swiping forward, then backward again in search, I found the one I wanted. It showed a clay piece, certainly construction but of a totally different kind. It wasn’t a bust exactly, certainly wasn’t a lifelike representation of Lily. It was more vague than not, more suggestive than exact, but it was definitely our child, whose life had never been static and whose memory mirrored that.
I hadn’t been able to sculpt her before. So this was new. But I wasn’t glazing this piece. I planned to bronze her and, after the last of the dust settled on the work in the house, find a special place for her to sit. It wouldn’t be on a pedestal. Neither of us wanted a mausoleum. What we wanted was that Lily mix with our current life, because that life was rich.
Ten years ago, rich meant money. Neither of us had been rolling in it growing up, which may have been a way of rationalizing the lifestyle we had—and, hey, I’m not saying money can’t buy happiness. When it means having a home, enough food, or medical care? Seriously. But wealth isn’t wealth without family and friends. In that sense, we were rich now as never before.
Thumbing through pictures from the last few months, I stopped at one of Grace and Chris, and brought it full-screen. I had caught them from behind when they were leaving the courtroom after Chris’s hearing. Chris seemed taller, perhaps simply standing straight, and his arm was around Grace’s shoulder in what could only be interpreted as protectiveness. That was what I loved about this shot. Having learned who he was, he could finally appreciate what his mother had done for him all these years. Moreover, after spending the week with Carter Brandt, who was also in the courtroom that day, Chris seemed neither impressed that the guy was in Congress nor, though he had little say as yet, particularly eager to be in his care. Call me perverse, but that pleased me.
The resolution of the case was equally satisfying. Given Chris’s age, he had been charged with an act of juvenile delinquency. After studying the psychologist’s reports, statements from Chris’s teachers, and