Eight years passed.
Jeremy turned thirteen in March.
He was tall now, quiet in the way that fills a room rather than empties it.
His teachers said he was the most attentive student they’d ever had.
He just never spoke.
Every year, on the anniversary of Janice’s passing, I host a small gathering at our house.
Her photo on the mantel. Her favorite flowers on the table. The people who loved her, together.
This year, my husband came.
He always comes.
He sits at the far end of the table, never makes eye contact with Jeremy, and leaves before dessert.
Jeremy watched him from the moment he walked in.
We were midway through dinner — the careful quiet of people tiptoeing around grief — when Jeremy set down his fork.
He looked slowly around the table.
At me.
At his grandparents.
And then at his father.
He pointed at him, and opened his mouth, and in a voice none of us had heard in eight years, cracked and low and certain, he said three words.
