It felt like opening a window.
Later that afternoon, Ava placed a small framed photograph on the kitchen shelf.
It was a picture of the three of us from years earlier.
Chloe in the middle.
Ava on one side.
Me on the other.
“We’re still a family,” Ava whispered.
I looked at her.
“Yes,” I said. “We always were.”
She reached for my hand.
And as sunlight filled the kitchen, I finally understood something Chloe had known long before I did.
Sometimes love doesn’t disappear when someone dies.
Sometimes it simply changes shape.
And sometimes, when the truth finally comes into the light, the people left behind get a chance to begin living again.
That was what Ava and I did.
We didn’t forget Chloe.
We carried her with us.
And we moved forward.
