Volunteers would visit them.

Sit beside them.

Listen to their stories.

Hold their hands.

Make sure that, whatever happened, they did not leave this world feeling forgotten.

It was exactly the kind of place Julian had spent his life wishing existed.

And on the first day we opened, Caleb brought something with him.

The red dress.

He had asked me if I wanted to keep it.

I told him it belonged with him.

He shook his head.

“No.”

He looked at the dress.

“Dad wanted you to have it.”

So I placed it inside a glass case in the center of the workshop.

Beside it, I put a small card.

It read:

For Lily.

For every child who deserves to feel loved.

And beneath that:

Your masterpiece lives on.

---

Chapter 14 — What Julian Really Left Me

People sometimes ask me what Julian left me.

They assume I will say the building.

The money.

The property.

The business.

They assume the strange seven-day marriage somehow turned into an unexpected inheritance story.

But that isn’t what Julian left me.

He left me something far more difficult.

A reason to keep loving.

Before I met him, I thought grief meant learning how to stop hurting.