Page 12 of The Summer We Mended
The kids screamed in delight and took off running across the yard.Cody chased after them, his laughter loud and free, his stride long and easy.Anna watched him, heart tugging.He reminded her so much of their father—the way he threw his head back when he laughed, the way he let the kids tackle him without holding back, completely in the moment.
Lily appeared at her side, eyes tracking the same scene.“He looks just like your dad when he runs around like that.”
Anna nodded.“I know.”
But Lily’s voice was quiet, almost strained.“It’s hard to look at him sometimes.”
Anna didn’t respond, just reached out and wrapped an arm around her mother’s shoulders.Cody was entertaining the kids, and they were enjoying every second of it.Anna thought it was good for all of them to hear the laughter and distract them from the rest of the world for a bit.
Margot ordered them all pizza for dinner, and Cody said goodbye not long after.The kids took their showers for the night, and then Anna helped them into bed.
Later that night, with the twins asleep and the house wrapped in a hush, Anna sat with Lily in the living room, mugs of tea warming their hands.The silence stretched, but Anna didn’t rush to fill it.
“I’m not great company.And the mess… I didn’t want you to see me like this.”
“I’ve seen you at your best and your worst,” Anna said, her voice catching.“This isn’t the worst.You lost Dad, and I’m sure that it takes some getting used to.I can’t imagine…”
Lily stared into her mug.“I’m not sure what help I can be to you or the kids.”
Anna reached across the coffee table and took her hand.“Then let’s figure it out together.”
The silence settled again, but it felt different now.Not empty.Not afraid.They were both grieving and always would be, but together, maybe Lily could find a way to pull herself out of it for the sake of her grandkids.
Margot tiptoed in, grinning.“Tea, tears, and quiet understanding.I see we’ve reached Act Two.”
Anna laughed.“Go to bed, Margot.”
“Fine.It’s getting way past my bedtime anyway,” Margot waved a hand and grinned before she grabbed her things and walked out the door.“But tomorrow, we’re hitting the farmer’s market.Fresh bread cures everything.Scientific fact.”
Anna turned back to her mother.Lily’s expression had softened, her gaze clearer.
“Do you remember when Dad used to drag us to the beach in the rain?”Anna asked.
Lily nodded slowly.“He said the ocean was best when everyone else was too scared to look.”
Anna’s throat tightened.“I want the twins to remember that kind of magic.”
“They will,” Lily said softly.“Because you’re their mother.”
Anna pulled the blanket from the back of the couch and curled into it.Lily mirrored her.They didn’t speak again.They didn’t need to.
For tonight, just being there was enough.
ChapterFour
Anna
The morning sun filtered through the gauzy curtains in her childhood bedroom.The seagulls made their wake-up calls just beyond the windows, and she could hear the wind and ocean calling outside the cottage, too.Inside the house, everything was too still.
Anna blinked awake in the room, tangled in a too-warm quilt, her neck stiff from the unfamiliar pillow.It took her a moment to register where she was.Martha’s Vineyard.Home.Her dad was gone, and her husband was in the air somewhere in the world, protecting this country while everyone else slept.
She reached across the bed instinctively for her phone.6:42 a.m.
And yet the silence in the house was unnatural.There were no scents of coffee drifting up the stairs.No clinking of dishes.No muffled footsteps from the kitchen below.The twins were still asleep in their room across the hall, a small miracle, but the house itself felt frozen.
Growing up, mornings had been sacred.Predictable.Her mother would be awake before dawn, the smell of freshly brewed coffee and toasted sourdough wafting through the house.There’d be the faint hum of the kettle, the slam of the back door as Lily slipped out to the pottery studio before breakfast.And before her father died, the quiet, happy murmur of her parents giggling like teenagers, their voices low and affectionate through the paper-thin walls.
She thought back to one of those mornings when she was thirteen and Cody was sixteen.It had been just after six then, too; still dim outside.
