I didn’t cry. I hadn’t cried since that moment on County Road 27 when I realized my children had become strangers. Instead, I began to put the room back in order, folding Nicholas’s flannel shirts that still smelled faintly of him, gathering scattered photographs, restoring order to the chaos my son had left behind.
As darkness fell, I moved to the kitchen and made a cup of tea, carrying it to the front porch where I settled into Nicholas’s rocking chair. Above me, stars began to emerge in the clear spring sky. Below, the orchard stretched into darkness, the trees we’d planted together now mature and strong.
My phone rang—Vincent checking on me.
“I’m home,” I told him. “Brandon’s gone.”
“And you’re all right there alone?” he asked.
“I’ve been alone since Nicholas died,” I replied. “The difference is, now I know it.”
