The next morning, I went to the cemetery.
I hadn’t been in three years.
Not because I forgot.
Because I couldn’t stand seeing her name on a stone when the only thing I wanted was to hear her voice.
I brought the letters.
I brought the photograph.
I brought two white roses — one for each girl.
I knelt down in front of the headstone.
“I found them,” I said.
“You already knew I would.”
The wind moved through the grass.
A bird called somewhere behind me.
“They’re eighteen now.
Emily wants to study nursing.
Grace wants to be a teacher.
They fight over the bathroom and they eat all my food and they play music too loud and they’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”
I set the roses against the stone.
“You were right.
If you had told me, I would have fallen apart.
I would have been so scared of doing it wrong that I would have done it wrong.
Finding them the way I did — like they were left there for me — that’s the only reason I survived.”
I put my hand on the stone.
It was cold.
“I named them Emily and Grace.
You already knew that too, didn’t you?
You picked those names and you put them in the letter and you hoped I’d find it someday.”
I stood up.
“Thank you.
For trusting me.
For trusting Chris.
For being smarter about grief than I was.”
I looked at the sky.
Clear.
Blue.
The kind of day Naomi would have loved.
“I’ll bring them next time.
They want to meet you.”
* * *
That evening, the four of us sat at the kitchen table — me, Emily, Grace, and Chris.
We ate dinner together for the first time as a complete family.
Not because anything had changed.
Because everything had finally been said.
Emily put her hand on mine.
“Dad?”
“Yeah.”
“We found something else in the box.”
I looked at her.
“What else could possibly be in that box?”
She pulled out a small folded piece of paper.
“It’s a list.
Naomi’s handwriting.
Names she was considering before she picked ours.”
I unfolded it.
Two names were crossed out.
Two were circled.
Emily.
Grace.
