Page 63 of Recipes for Life

Like I’d deny her a damn thing, and she knew it.

Her eyes twinkled in mischief at me, knowing she would get her way.

“Okay, two against one, I get it. Let’s go see Daddy’s workshop!” I tried to keep a straight look on my face, but I worried about Odette's reaction when she went inside. I worried it would be too much for her, that I was already pushing my luck. I told myself that even though she made it very clear she wanted me, that I’d go at whatever pace she set out.

Lux wiggled out of my arms with a laugh and took off toward the workshop I had built with my dad and brother. The outside had taken us days to put together, with lots of curse words and yelling, but we did it. It was a labor of love. The inside took me a year to get it the way I wanted it. The light wood and exposed beams that were painted black worked perfectly. The windows let in a lot of natural light, and even though the air would always be dusty, it held the most amazing scent of fresh cut wood.

Serenity.

That’s what I felt when I walked in.

One side of the shop was lined in a memorial of Lux’s childhood—pictures of her growing up lined the walls and the trinkets and toys I had built for her lined the shelves beneath the pictures. Each one highlights a year of her life.

Odette gasped at the care and the memories that lined the walls, tears instantly filling her eyes as she looked at me. Nodding her appreciation, I knew she didn’t have the words to express all of what she was feeling.

She made her way down the row, taking everything in, laughing at a few of what she saw when Lux ran over to her and grabbed her hand. “This way, Mommy! To your corner!”

“My corner?” she asked in bewilderment.

“Yes! Come look!”

She walked her over to the area I had built for Odette. There was a reading nook with a bookshelf, and on the bookshelf sat wooden books I had with her favorite titles and authors. I let Lux paint the shelves, and even though the deep wooden covers contrasted with the light colors Lux used for the flowers, they somehow fit perfectly.

In the table, I sketched in the phrase, “Odette’s Corner.”

I saw as she ran her fingers over the carving, her eyes glassy and filled with wonder and awe.

“Look at these!” Lux brought her attention to the area where hundreds of wooden flowers lay in vases and on the walls. Different colors, different sizes, all etched with the same phrase.

Lux started handing her the wooden flowers I’d carved, hundreds of them. Something reminded me of her every day, and when that happened, I carved her a flower and wrote “In this life and the next” on the petals or the stem and dated them.

She started inspecting how many flowers were carved and laid around in wooden vases I’d made, or ones I’d help Lux make.

“Oh my god,” she murmured, spinning around and taking in the massive amount of them. “Are these… Are these all for me?”

“Of course, silly! Dad said he wanted to make you a forever garden.”

Her mouth hung open in shock, and she kept walking and looking through the flowers. “These are…these are amazing. I have no words,” she whispered but I was close enough to hear her.

I tried to gauge her emotions, but she still seemed to be in a state of shock. Lux was completely focused on showing her mom all the different kinds of flowers we’d made, going through whatkind they were. Odette’s eyes grew misty by the second, and when she finally looked over at me, the look she gave me made my heart stop.

Love,nothing butlove.

“I love you,”she said silently.

“I love you,”I said to her as I walked to her and pulled her and Lux into my arms.

“In this life and the next,” I whispered to her, and then she said the only thing I ever wanted to hear.

“In this life and the next.”

Epilogue

Odette

One year later...

“Murphy? Lux?” I called out as I walked through the gate for the backyard. Sometimes I wondered why we even had a front door because we never,everused it.

---