you need me. Okay?” A solid kiss on her cheek, another full-body hug, a sweet smile for Kiki, and then she turned and headed for the barn.
Kiki then frog-marched the reluctant Andie toward the small orchard and garden patch. The closer they came, the more Andie dug in her heels.
“Not this way,” Andie said, an edge of panic in her quiet voice. “Not this way.” When Kiki kept marching and tugging, Andie’s struggled in earnest. She shoved at Kiki’s shoulder with her left hand as she tried to free her right. “Not in that orchard! I’m never going in there again. No! That’s where it happened. That’s where… where—” But she didn’t finish. Andie just trailed off and stared toward the lovely garden patch like she was gaping into the jowls of hell, and Kiki felt her resolve crumble under the onslaught of her best friend’s grief.
“Oh, honey.” She stopped the struggles by the simple act of enfolding her in a tight embrace. Andie wasn’t having it. She wiggled and strained to free herself, so Kiki tightened her grip and held firm. “The garden didn’t cause this. Don’t fall into that trap. You start locking yourself out of places because they remind you of her, and you’ll be locked on that porch swing for the next twenty years. It’s a trap, sweet momma, I promise. Just a trap that’ll keep you locked in a cage of grief. Marking off places like this beautiful spot is like settling the bars for your own cell.”
“But, I c-c-can’t!” Andie sobbed into her shoulder, clinging now instead of fighting to be free. “I can’t. She’s everywhere. Everywhere.”
“Everywhere, huh?” Kiki cosseted her like she would a child. The woman was pumping out so much grief and pain it was a wonder they both didn’t drown in it. “I thought as much. No wonder you never move from that swing.”
“It’s the only place. The only safe place.”
“Sure, it’s not.” Kiki scoffed and eased the other woman back with a hand on each shoulder to meet her tear-ravaged eyes. “Look around you. Nothing here hurt you. This is a beautiful spot. A place that feeds you and offers you shade from the sun and flowers for your table. Look at it all. It’s lovely here, and you’re only losing more if you make this spot taboo.”
Under the shade of the apple trees whose leaves were just starting to turn, Andie stilled and looked up. Tears continued to swim in her eyes, but they were quiet ones now.
“I had to fill out a death certificate.”
Kiki firmed her lips and nodded solemnly. She knew this, had been there quietly sobbing alongside her as she completed the hated red-tape processes that were required. It’d been hellish. “Can you believe I had to do that? They gave me a death certificate, Kik. But they never gave me a birth certificate.”
“Oh, honey.” The bite of fresh tears stung Kiki’s eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
“How is that fair? How is that right?” Andie demanded in watery outrage. “She was born! She was alive and moving when she came into this world, but they didn’t give me a birth certificate. No! Nothing to mark that she was here, that she existed. Only something to prove she’s gone.”
And the bereaved mother sank to her knees, her hands fisted in her own hair as she wept angrily over the injustice of it all. Kiki crouched down in front of her, elbows braced on knees, and she ached to wrap Andie up in her embrace and coddle her pain away. Experience—hard won over these last two months—had taught her that no amount of affection would reach where Andie’s pain was coming from.
“There’s nothing fair about that. It’s awful.” Andie’s sobs caught on a hitch and she opened her eyes to look into Kiki’s face. “Thing is, nothing is going to change the way things are. We’re stuck here, for the rest of our lives, without her. We can’t do anything about that. As much as we wish it weren’t so, we can’t just will things to be any different.” Kiki knew her words had a razor’s edge; she knew too that, like a festering wound, sometimes sharp words were needed to let the poisons out so true healing could begin. Her hand shook a little when she used it to brush the hair from Andie’s pale cheek.
“She’s gone. Your sweet baby girl died, and that’s a terrible thing. But you didn’t die with her. You’re still here. Sweetheart,