“Why?”
Hannah touched the two trees on the lid.
“There’s space.”
That winter, she came home.
For three evenings, father and daughter disappeared into the garage.
This time, the door stayed open.
On Christmas Eve, they brought the chest inside.
Hannah had added something.
Between the intertwined trees, beneath the names HANNAH and ROSIE, she’d carved a small sun.
Crooked.
Uneven.
Beautiful.
Underneath:
SHE WAS HERE.
I cried.
Of course I did.
But Hannah wasn’t finished.
She turned the chest around.
On the back she’d carved:
SO WAS I.
I touched the words.
Hannah looked at me.
“For eighteen years, Rosie’s death was the secret.”
She shook her head.
“I don’t want my life to become the apology for surviving it.”
“No.”
I pulled her close.
“It won’t.”
Five years have passed.
Hannah is twenty-three now.
She’s a pediatric occupational therapist.
Last year, she married a man named Noah who knew about Rosie before their third date.
That detail mattered to me more than it probably should have.
No secrets.
No carefully managed truths.
At their wedding, Daniel walked Hannah down the aisle.
Before they started, she stopped him.
“What?”
She reached into her bouquet.
Attached beneath the white ribbon was a tiny silver charm.
