#One Month later#
"This is phenomenal—unheard of. Your legs have healed completely in a month," my doctor says, shock written all over his face.
Grandpa's hand finds my shoulder—one steady squeeze, a dock piling in a storm. I'm on the edge of the exam table, paper crackling under me. The casts came off yesterday; today is X-rays and a verdict. My knees look like mine again—faded PT marker arrows, three new freckles I don't remember earning.
He clips the films to the lightbox. Bone lines gleam like careful handwriting. "I still want you on a ramp-up," he adds, already bracing for me to bolt. "Light weight-bearing, short distances. Brace if you feel unstable. Keep PT. Whatever you two are doing—" he gestures between me and Max "—it's working."
What I'm doing is counting: three in, four out. What I'm doing is learning a new language with my hands and another with the green that lives somewhere between my ribs and the compass on my chest. What I'm doing is not saying any of that here.
I sign thank you—palm from chin, away—and the doctor smiles like he's in on a secret he's okay not knowing. "You're welcome," he says, then softens. "And… I'm sorry for your loss, Ben. I know today is… a lot."
Everything inside me goes still, a lake flash-frozen mid-wind. Mom's face surfaces. Heat climbs my chest until it's a burn I can't swallow. Grandpa's fingers tighten, anchoring me back. I nod. I sign thank you again and keep my eyes on the floor tiles, counting the hairline cracks instead of counting days.
"We appreciate everything you've done for us," Grandpa says. He offers his hand. The doctor takes it, a little awkward, a little gentle.
"Just doing my job. Y'all drive safe," he says, and steps out. The door sighs shut. Grandpa and I stand, the paper on the table gasping as it lets me go. We follow him out into the bright hallway that smells like lemon and the end of something.
...
"Need help with that tie?" Grandpa asks while we dress, both of us in black—traditional tuxes. What you wear to something like this.
"Ben, are you gonna be okay?" he says, concern threading his voice as he watches my hands fight the tie. They shake. The silk keeps slipping.
I picture the faces I'll see, all of them looking around like they knew her, like they cared. If they did, I would've heard from them. I would've met them. Known them.
Instead I have to stand there and pretend to be normal in front of a room full of strangers at my mother's fake funeral. Because she's coming back. I know it. She has to—
"Ben!" Grandpa's voice snaps me back. His face says it all."Hey now. Everything's going to be okay. You gotta be strong—just not right now. I've got you, son."
He crosses the rustbucket's sad excuse for a hallway in two steps, gathers me in, and kneels so we're level. I don't realize I'm crying until the first tear lands on my knuckle; then there's no stopping it.
"Hey, hey—I know, Ben. I know." He holds me tighter, tears in his voice, and we just kneel there for a while, letting out something we don't share with anyone but each other.
"It's all gonna be okay. It will get better, Ben. And even if it doesn't, me and the rest of the family will be here. We've got you. I've got you." Now he's crying, too, his voice rough with the sadness he tried to hide for my sake.
"Let me tell you something about your mother," he says a couple minutes later. We both wipe our faces. He lifts the tie from my collar and starts to work it. "She was trouble—big trouble—when she was your age."
I look at him and sign, really? He laughs, a small, sad laugh."Yeah. The fights she got into with her brothers, your grandma… even me. Me especially. She was a tough one."
He smiles at the memory, stands, and turns me to the mirror. The tie sits neat and perfect at my throat. I can't help but notice the long scar cutting across my left eye. One that would force me to remember that day for the rest of my life.
"But she also had this—" he searches for it, once again knocking me from my dark thoughts—"this vibrant energy. No matter what she said, no matter how anyone felt, she could walk into a room and somehow everyone smiled."
I sign, how?
"Because she chose it," he says. "She was always finding one thing to be happy about—even when she was mad, even when she was sad. And that matters, Ben. Especially for you right now." He gives me a strained smile and sets his hands on my shoulders.
"You're gonna need to be brave—to be a hero in your own way. You're gonna need to be strong. Just know I'll be there every step of the way, okay?" He squeezes once, and sighs. "Now, let's go say goodbye."
...
The funeral home smells like lilies and carpet shampoo and the faint sweetness of coffee that's already gone cold. The air is conditioned to a chill that doesn't quite reach bone. Grandpa's palm lands warm between my shoulder blades as we step through the double doors. "One thing," he murmurs, like we made a pact. "Find one thing." I nod because the knot in my tie is still square and my legs are still holding and I need those to be proof of something.
There's a photo of Mom on an easel by the guest book—Kaitlyn caught mid-laugh, hair blowing, eyes doing that crinkle-spark like she'd just thought of a joke she was about to say even if it would get her in trouble. People stop, look up at it like it's a window they could climb through. I want to tell them to look away. It's too rude to stare at the sun.
We move down the aisle toward the front row with the reserved signs. The casket is closed, polished dark, a spill of white roses and green ferns on top. I feel the green under my own ribs respond—quiet, a tide pulling back. I count—three in, four out—until my lungs remember their job. Grandpa slips into the end seat and I sit beside him. The program is thick paper that snaps when I flip it open: Order of Service. Musical Prelude. Words of Comfort. Eulogy: Beatrice Kerby Tennyson. Graveside Committal.
I remember asking Beatrice to do the eulogy in my place. She was nervous, unsure what to say, but she said yes—she knew I couldn't, not then. Not even now. Even so, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was letting my mom down.
People trickle past our row in a river of black and gray and Sunday bests that don't fit right. Hands touch my shoulder, my forearm, the slice of air near me like they're afraid I'll break. "I'm so sorry." "Your mother was a light." "She always stayed late to help." "Let us know if you need anything, anything at all." Their words pile up like coats on a bed in winter.
Beatrice finds me before the service starts. Her hair in braids wrapped into a crown. She smells like coconut oil and the cinnamon she puts on everything, with a slight scent of pickles. "Hey," she whispers, and folds me in. Beatrice never says I'm sorry like it's a period. She says it like a hand outstretched. I squeeze back, then pull away before I melt.
Carl—Uncle Carl—comes next, big shoulders in a suit that strains at the seams. He clears his throat. "You need anything, little man, you tell me," he says, the words heavy, like he's lifting them. He nods at Grandpa. "Pop." His eyes are red around the edges like he's been sanding them. Aunt Sandra stands just behind him, lipstick perfect, hair sprayed into architecture, the only thing about her that isn't shaking. She presses a tissue into my hand like she's handing me a map out of a forest. "Sit with your Grandpa," she says, voice thin. "You stay right here if you need to. You don't have to talk to anybody you don't want to."
Gwen—sweet Gwen, the same age yet already taller than me by an inch—leans down and wraps me with her arms. "We're here," she says. Just that. I nod and feel my throat make a new shape around the word.
Aunt Natalie arrives in a rustle of silk and bracelets, her perfume peaches and something powdery. "Baby," she says, both hands on my cheeks like she did when I was little. "You are love. Remember that." She kisses my forehead. The spot tingles like a stamp. Uncle Frank claps my shoulder, not too hard this time, like he's learned something about force. "Kid," he says. "Your Ma—" His voice cracks. He nods instead.
Lucy Mann—comes from the other side, always a whirlwind in sneakers, always a streak of color in a room—has on a black dress that keeps trying to be playful and failing. She holds my gaze like a dare. "If you need to bail, just look at me," she whispers. "I'll fake an asthma attack and we'll bounce." She shows me her inhaler, one she probably stole or found somewhere, then tucks it away, a tiny flash of rebellion buried in the solemn. It almost makes me laugh. Almost. I sign thank you in my lap, small, and she flicks her fingers back—got you—before sliding into a seat with her parents.
A cluster of people I half-know come as a group, name tags from the clinic still clipped to their pockets even now. A woman with a streak of purple at her temple—Mom's friend from the front desk, I think her name is Renee—takes my hand with both of hers. "Your mom carried us," she says. "If we were slammed, she stayed. If we were short, she covered. She brought muffins on Mondays because she said Mondays were liars and needed proof they could be good." Her eyes shine. "I'm so sorry, sweetheart." A man behind her—tall, nervous hands—adds, "Kaitlyn talked about you every day. Every day." He presses his lips together like he shouldn't have said it. Another woman, younger, hair in a high bun, says, "She trained me my first week. I spilled an entire tray of vaccine vials and cried in the supply closet, and she sat on the floor with me until I laughed." They offer casseroles and prayers and phone numbers I will never call. I nod. I sign thank you until my wrists ache, and still it's not enough.
The music starts—something slow and true, piano and a voice that sounds like it has walked a long way. The officiant moves to the lectern. He says the words people say. Dust to dust. Love endures. He reads a psalm Mom used to hum under her breath when she did the dishes, and I can see her back to me at the sink, the way her shoulders rolled with the melody, the way she flicked water at me when she caught me watching. The memory lands with a weight I wasn't ready to hold.
The music folds itself down to a hush. The officiant nods toward the front row, and Beatrice rises. Her braids catch the light. She carries a neat stack of note cards—too many for the short walk to the lectern—and holds them like a lifeline.
"Good morning," she says, voice careful. "My name is Beatrice Kerby Tennyson." She glances down at the card, then back up. "I didn't have the chance to know Kaitlyn. Our family… wasn't close then." The admission lands cleanly in the room—no excuse, just the truth. "So I asked the people who did know her to tell me who she was."
Beatrice clears her throat and looks at her cards, then up. "I didn't grow up with Kaitlyn," she says. "So I asked the people who did." She nods to Grandpa. "He told me about the summer the swamp cooler died and your mom turned the hose into a rainbow for the whole block—charged a nickel for 'admission' and gave the nickels back as popsicles." She shifts to Carl. "Her brothers remember how she fixed the screen door with fishing line and pure stubbornness, and how she outlawed slamming it because 'the house is tired, too.'" A glance to Aunt Sandra. "Sandra said Kaitlyn kept a list on the fridge called 'Things We're Learning,' everything from 'change your own oil' to 'say sorry like you mean it.'" She taps another card. "Aunt Natalie told me she taught herself piano on a thrift-store keyboard with three dead keys and still played the pageant. Uncle Frank swears she once traded her jacket to a neighbor kid at the county fair because the wind had teeth that night." Beatrice lets the cards fall to her side. "I can't speak to the years I missed. But the stories agree on this: Kaitlyn made do, made room, and kept the porch light on for whoever was coming home late." She draws a breath. "If I can honor her at all, it's by keeping that light on for him."
Her eyes flick to me, gentle but steady. "I can also say that the person who will always know her—Ben—is here. And we will show up for him." She swallows, doesn't reach for more. "That's all." She gives the smallest nod, sets the cards down, and steps away from the microphone like it's hot.
The room lets out a breath it didn't know it was holding. The officiant leads a hymn. I try to sing; my voice won't. Grandpa hums low beside me, a sound I could follow blindfolded. Aunt Sandra's tissue stays clenched in her fist like a flag nobody can see. Uncle Carl stares at the casket and doesn't blink for a long time.
When it's time to go, the funeral director signals. We stand in a slow, rustling wave. The pallbearers take their places—Uncle Frank among them, two men from Mom's clinic, and one of Carl's friends with scuffed dress shoes. They lift together, faces set in the same expression people wear when moving furniture up tight stairwells—careful, determined, trying not to bump the corners of the world.
Outside, the sun feels loud after the hush of the chapel. The hearse gleams like a beetle. Cars form a tidy line with little flags stuttering on their hoods. Strangers on the road pull over; some touch the brims of their hats. I pretend it's all love, not habit.
At the cemetery, the sky is a white bowl turned upside down. The tent is a square of shadow over a rectangle of opened earth skirted in bright artificial green. We take the front row again. The words at the graveside are the same words everyone gets—ashes, dust, mercy—and they pass through me like radio waves through brick. Wind lifts a corner of the floral spray; the roses whisper to each other.
Names settle into their places around me. Aunt Natalie holds Aunt Sandra's hand and murmurs a steady stream, like keeping the air busy might keep it from sinking. Gwen sits very still, eyes on a crow working its way along a low branch as if it has business here. Lucy leans forward, elbows on her knees, ready to launch into some ridiculous rescue at the smallest cue. Uncle Carl's hands hang between his knees, fists opening and closing like he's practicing letting go. Frank stands with the pallbearers, shoulders squared, trying to be a wall.
The funeral director turns the small crank. The straps unwind. The casket lowers an inch, then another. Something in my chest leaps against the downward motion—a desperate, upward kick that makes my jaw hurt. I keep my face still. That feels like the only version of tough left to me: jaw set, eyes forward, heart a fist you don't open. If I had been this before—steel, unbendable—maybe she would still be here. The thought shines like a bad coin and I can't stop fingering it.
The casket dips again. Heat needles behind my eyes; a single tear escapes and tracks fast down my cheek. I don't wipe it. The green under my ribs hums low and stubborn, and the compass stamped on my chest feels heavy—as if it knows exactly where she is now and refuses to tell.
"Family may take a flower," the director says when the casket settles. We rise, one by one.
Aunt Sandra goes first, speaking too softly for me to hear, then flicking her rose forward like she's sending a message only wood and earth can read. Uncle Frank lays his down with his palm pressed flat, a quiet benediction. Natalie kisses her petals and lets them fall. Carl clears his throat once and drops his flower like a duty finally done. Gwen's lands crooked; she flinches, as if she's knocked the world off-kilter and can't set it right. Lucy rolls hers between her fingers and sends it in a small spinning arc that earns a few startled glances—her tiniest rebellion, neat and contained.
Mom's coworkers move together, the way they must when a day goes sideways. Renee with the purple streak whispers something I can't catch and touches the wood like she's checking for a pulse she knows isn't there. The tall man with nervous hands says, "We've got Tuesdays," to the ground, as if the earth needs to hear the plan. The young woman with the bun cries quietly, steady as a drip you notice and can't ignore.
Then it's me.
I stand because standing is something my body still remembers. I take a rose, thorns stinging enough to prove I'm here. I step close to the edge until my toes kiss the green. The hole is a dark mouth.
I want to say everything I didn't say and everything I said wrong and everything I can't fix. My throat is a locked door. So I use what I have.
I sign I love you. I sign I'm sorry. I sign thank you, thank you, thank you—small, quick shapes I hope the air will carry down.
I let the rose go. It lands with a soft pat, a sound too ordinary for what it takes out of me. The air doesn't change; no hidden door opens. The denial inside me—bright, violent—slams against the fact of the world and finds no purchase. She's coming back, I think, because some part of me refuses to stop. She is. She has to be. Any minute now she'll step from behind the tent and say, "Gotcha," half-impish, half-apologetic, and I'll be so mad I won't know whether to laugh or cry and I'll do both. Any minute. Any—
Nothing answers. The hole stays a hole. The roses don't move.
Grandpa's hand settles on my shoulder. One squeeze. No words. He stands with me while the wind combs the trees and far down the lane another family begins their own worst day.
The director offers a shovel. Grandpa glances at me. I nod—our new language. The handle is smooth from other hands. The first scoop of earth is heavier than it looks. It slides off the blade with a whisper and becomes part of the new shape of the world. I do a second, a third. My hands start to shake. Grandpa takes the shovel without making a ceremony of it.
"Goodbye, Kait," Aunt Natalie says, voice level now like a singer who has found her note. "We'll take care of him." She doesn't look at me when she says it. She doesn't need to.
People drift—touching shoulders, trading casseroles and phone numbers and promises to stop by with soup. Beatrice stays close, not with stories but with presence. She doesn't try to fill the silence; she keeps it with me. Gwen presses a packet of tissues into my hand and pretends to need one too so I won't feel singled out. Carl and Frank talk low with the men who will finish the work once we leave. Sandra reaches to tuck a stray hair behind my ear like my mother would have, then startles at herself and lets her hand fall.
"One thing," Grandpa murmurs—not a command, a reminder. He tips his chin toward the sky. A ragged V of geese stitches past, loud and certain, headed for somewhere that remembers them. I let the sound cross the hole and come back to me. It doesn't fix anything. It makes room for the next breath.
We walk to the cars. The rustbucket waits, sun warming its dents into a map I know by touch. Lucy backs toward me, heel-to-toe, the clowning barely-there. "I still got the inhaler if you wanna bail," she mutters. I shake my head. She nods like we've completed a test without knowing the questions.
At the door, Grandpa pauses. The cemetery stretches out—names, flags, flowers; a city of all the things that didn't get to stay. I want the ground to open and return what it took. I want a miracle I haven't earned. I press my palm over the compass stamped on my chest. It doesn't point backward. It doesn't point forward either. It just sits there, stubborn and true, like the word love spelled with hands in the space between a boy and the sky.
"Ready?" Grandpa asks. This time the word means only what it says: are your feet under you enough for one more step. I nod. He squeezes once. We get in. The engine clears its throat. We pull away slow, the tent and the roses and the bright, lying grass shrinking in the mirror until the road bends and they are, for now, out of sight.