Daniel — somehow — survived.
Daniel came home a few days ago, still limping, bruised, stitched up, wrapped in bandages, and still barely speaking. He moved around as if he were waiting for someone to take him back to the hospital and finish the job.
My husband still blamed himself for taking that road, for not seeing the truck soon enough, and for being the one who made it out alive.
Honestly, the house no longer felt like home. It's a shell of what it used to be and is almost always silent.
Honestly, the house no longer
felt like home.
Lily's room was exactly as she had left it. Her art supplies and pencils were scattered across her desk, her sunflower sketch half-colored. Her toys still lay across the floor, and her pink lamp was still plugged in beside her bed.
The bracelet she made for me lay half-finished on her nightstand. The fairy lights still twinkled along the window at night. Sometimes I found myself just walking past her door and felt like a ghost drifting through someone else's life.
Lily's room
was exactly as
she had left it.
I would stare at her room, as if waiting for her to pop out and say, "Boo!" She never does.
I'd spend days making coffee I wouldn't drink, sitting in chairs that were uncomfortable, and I only slept when my body gave up. I just didn't know how to live in a world in which she wasn't. I pretended only to function.
The police took all my baby girl's belongings from the accident scene for evidence. Despite their kindness, it felt as if I were robbed.
I pretended only to function.
I remember sitting in a dull gray room, tears streaking down my cheeks, while signing a form that listed everything she had with her: her backpack, glitter sneakers, the sunflower sketchbook she started drawing in the night before, her sparkly purple headband, and the yellow sweater.
That sweater.
It was her favorite. A soft, bright yellow one with tiny pearl buttons. She wore it almost every weekend. It made her look like a walking sunbeam. I could spot her across any playground when she wore it.
She wore it
almost every weekend.
It made her look like a sunbeam and smelled like crayons, vanilla shampoo, and the faintest hint of peanut butter from school lunches. And now it was locked up in some evidence bag in a drawer I'd never see.
That morning, I sat at the kitchen table in Daniel's oversized sweatshirt, hugging a mug of coffee I had already reheated twice. The mug said "Best Mom Ever" in colorful marker, a Mother's Day gift from Lily.
I kept telling myself to drink the coffee, to do something normal, something human, but my hands wouldn't move.
