I sat down on the foot of his bed. “You okay?”
He nodded, then hesitated.
I waited.
CJ had always needed a little space around the truth before he could step into it.
“It’s early spring now,” he said finally.
I glanced toward the window. “Yeah.”
“The flowers are coming back.”
Sadness washed over me before I knew why. Then I realized.
There were pale flowers along the far side of the property, near the stone wall where the sun hit first in the morning. Jade had loved them. She’d planted them our second year in the house and told me they were stubborn little things. She’d said that with approval, dirt on her cheek, hair falling out of its clip, Billie not even a thought in the world yet.
I hadn’t noticed they were blooming again.
I had driven past them every day that week. Maybe even two weeks. I’d been on calls, thinking through deadlines, checking messages at stoplights, rehearsing conversations I didn’t want to have. I hadn’t noticed them.
CJ had noticed. Of course he had.
“They’re Mom’s favorite.” His eyes stayed on the blanket, fingers picking at a loose thread.
I swallowed and looked down at my hands. “They are.”
“Could we take some to her tomorrow?”
I didn’t answer right away. I couldn’t.
There were moments when the grief didn’t knock the breath out of me or send me into some cinematic spiral. Sometimes it simply sat beside me in my son’s room after too much takeout, while dirty dishes waited downstairs and flour dried on the walls. Sometimes it was the small shame of not noticing her favorite flowers were in bloom.
CJ looked up at me then, his expression uncertain. Older than eleven in one breath, still very much eleven in the next.
“To say hi,” he added.
My heart hurt so profoundly, I had to press my palm against his blanket to keep myself there with him.
“Yeah,” I said. “Of course we can.”
His shoulders eased. “Can we use the nice scissors? Billie cuts the stems wrong.”
“Billie cuts everything wrong. She’s five.”
CJ gave a small smile, and I leaned over to kiss his forehead before he could object. He didn’t. That nearly undid me more than him mentioning the flowers. Standing, I turned off his lamp.
“Dad?”
I paused at the door. “Yeah?”
“Do you think she knows that we’re okay?”
“I hope so,” I said.
He nodded once, satisfied enough or pretending to be.
“Goodnight, CJ.”
