A new life.
A new start.
I’m on the porch, watering the thriving tomato plants Dom has been nurturing like they’re his own children. Frodo lies beside me, his belly to the air like he’s basking in the heat. The sun is warm on my skin, and for a moment, I can almost forget the ghost of a scar that pulls taut across my stomach.
“You’re drowning them,” Dom says, his voice a low, amused rumble. He comes up behind me, his hands settling on my hips, his chin resting on my shoulder. “They’re plants, Ellie, not fish.”
“They’re thirsty,” I retort, tilting the watering can. A deliberate flick of my wrist sends a small arc of water splashing onto his arm. “Oops.”
His eyes narrow playfully. “Oops, my ass.” Before I can react, he snatches the hose from its coil, a wicked grin spreading across his face. “You started a war you can’t win.”
Squealing, I turn and run, but he’s faster. A cold jet of water catches me in the back, soaking my thin cotton T-shirt. I spin around, laughing, and grab the hose, trying to wrench it from his grip.
We’re a tangle of limbs and spraying water, our shouts of mock outrage echoing in the tranquil afternoon. For a minute, we’re just two people in love, messing around in the yard. It feels almost normal.
Then Dom freezes. His laughter cuts off, his body going rigid as his gaze fixes on something over my shoulder. The playful energy vanishes, replaced by the sharp, predatory stillness I know so well. He gently pushes me behind him, his posture shifting into that of a guard.
Frodo lowers to a crouch and begins to growl, his tiny body trembling erratically.
“Dom? What is it?” I ask, peering around his arm.
A man is standing at the edge of the lawn, just beyond the picket fence. He’s thin, with haunted eyes and a face that’s bothfamiliar and strange. He’s dressed in a worn jacket and jeans, and he looks like he hasn’t slept in a year.
“Raymond?” I breathe, the name a whisper on my lips.
The world tilts, like someone has shifted it an inch to the left and forgotten to put it back. My heart stutters, then slams so hard against my ribs it hurts. For a second, I’m certain I’ve finally cracked—that grief has finished its slow, patient work and started giving me ghosts.
Because Uncle Raymond is standing ten feet in front of me.
Alive.
Not a memory. Not a photograph worn soft at the edges. Not the version of him I replayed in my head during sleepless nights, wondering if he’d been afraid at the end. He’s solid. Real. Older, maybe thinner, with more gray at his temples, but unmistakably him. He’s shoved his hands into his jacket pockets, like he doesn’t know what to do with them. Like he’s bracing for impact.
I can’t breathe.
“You’re dead,” I whisper, and the words come out broken, more plea than accusation. “I buried you.”
My vision blurs. I taste salt. My knees threaten to give out under the weight of more than a year’s worth of mourning crashing into a single moment. Hope flares so violently, it’s painful, like my chest is splitting open to make room for it. He’s alive. He’s here. The universe didn’t take everything after all.
Hope is a dangerous thing. It flares so fast it hurts, hot and blinding, lighting up every dark corner where I stuffed my grief and locked it away. My chest tightens like it’s trying to hold my heart together by force alone.
My legs move before I decide to. I’m closer now, close enough to see the lines around his eyes, the exhaustion etched into his face. Close enough to smell him, familiar and unfamiliar all at once. Alive. Breathing.
The relief hits first. Pure, crushing relief. I want to sob. I want to laugh. I want to press my face into his chest and feel his heartbeat under my ear just to prove to myself it exists.
Then the fury arrives.
It’s sharp and sudden, slicing clean through the hope, leaving it bleeding.
“You let me think you were dead.” My voice shakes, and I hate that it does. “Youlet mebury you.”
He opens his mouth, probably to explain, probably to justify whatever nightmare logic convinced him this was necessary, and something inside me snaps.
“I mourned you,” I say, louder now. My chest burns. “I broke over you. Do you have any idea what that does to someone?”
Tears blur my vision, but I don’t let them fall. I won’t give him that. I won’t let him think this is just relief and forgiveness wrapped in a hug.
“I hoped they were wrong,” I whisper, the anger trembling now, fragile around the edges. “Every day. I hoped they made a mistake. And then I hated myself for hoping, because dead is dead and hope makes it hurt worse.”
