I stopped.
“He was already ruined, Grace. He did this. Not you.”
“He said you’d hate me. He said he’d carry it, and I wouldn’t have to be the secret anymore.”
“I’m so sorry I ruined him for you.”
Something inside me cracked wide open.
She was sixteen.
She had lost a mother and a father she never got to claim.
And now, she’d also lost a brother who bought her a home with borrowed courage.
“Move over,” I said quietly.
Grace looked up, her eyes swollen and terrified.
Something inside me cracked wide open.
“What?”
“Move over. On the step.”
I sat down beside her.
For a long moment neither of us spoke.
The house held its breath around us, the way it had held David’s for weeks.
“He was a coward,” I whispered. “But he loved you. He loved us both, in the wrong order.”
I sat down beside her.
Grace nodded, wiping her face with the back of her wrist.
“I don’t want to replace anyone.”
“You couldn’t if you tried.”
I pulled her against my shoulder.
We cried for the same man from two different sides of his lie.
When my daughter came out into the hallway and asked if Grace was staying, I answered without hesitating.
“I don’t want to replace anyone.”
“She’s staying. She’s family.”
Grace exhaled like she had been holding that breath her whole life.
And I knew the hardest part had only just begun.
