Page 28 of The Summer We Mended
It should have broken her.And maybe it did, a little.
But she laughed.
The twins froze in place when they saw her.
“Grandma, come sing with us!”Nora exclaimed excitedly.
“Take it down a notch,” Anna warned playfully.
“I never had the heart to tell your dad that he was completely off-key with that one,” Lily said lightly as she smiled back at the twins.
Cody threw his head back and laughed.“That’s what made it so good!”
Lily smiled, brushing a stray curl from her face as Anna stepped aside to hand her a mug of coffee.The warmth seeped into her hands, anchoring her.
The table was already half-set, plates of pancakes stacked high, butter melting into golden pools.A small bowl of fresh strawberries sat beside a pitcher of maple syrup.Nora was helping arrange the forks and napkins, while Blaze attempted to fold them like airplanes.
“Sit, Mom,” Anna said gently.“We’ve got everything under control.”
“I can help,” Lily offered automatically.
“You deserve to just sit today.”
Lily hesitated before pulling out a chair.She settled in, watching her family move around the kitchen.It was a beautiful chaos, so unlike the quiet that usually hung over her mornings.
Nora plopped down beside her with a glass of orange juice.“Uncle Cody told us a story about Grandpa trying to surf on a boogie board.”
“Hedidtry,” Cody confirmed, pouring more batter into the skillet.“The ocean had other ideas.He wiped out like, ten times!”
“Ten is generous,” Anna quipped.
Lily found herself laughing again, though the sound caught in her throat.The image of David’s sea-sprayed face and triumphant grin flashed before her eyes, and the ache that followed it was swift and sharp.
Still, she smiled.
Breakfast passed in a blur of syrupy hands and buttery bites.The twins told Cody all about their new shells and treasures from the beach, their words tumbling over each other.Anna gently wiped strawberry juice from Blaze’s cheek while Nora gave a play-by-play of the pier adventure.
Cody kept them all laughing, his stories filled with exaggerated gestures and loud, theatrical voices.Anna chimed in now and then, and even Lily offered a few stories of David’s culinary misadventures, like the time he tried to cook Eggs Benedict and ended up with scrambled eggs and burned toast.
But the laughter was always shadowed.
There were moments when Lily would drift, her eyes fixed on the window or the photo of David that still hung on the wall across the kitchen.The conversation would continue around her, but she’d fall silent, her coffee cooling in her hands.
Anna noticed.She always did.
“You okay, Mom?”she asked softly during a lull in the chatter.
Lily blinked and nodded quickly, forcing a smile.“Just thinking.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
But she wasn’t.Not really.
Guilt twisted in her gut every time she laughed.Every time she felt light again.It felt wrong to find joy in a world that didn’t have David in it anymore.He should’ve been here, singing into a spatula, cheering the twins on, teasing Cody mercilessly.
Still, she tried to stay present.It was just really hard.
