Page 26 of Kylie

I adjusted Haden’s seat belt, touched his nose, and made the little boy giggle.

“Where’re we gonna put the trees?” Kade asked.

I shook my head. We had decided we would spread the trees around so that everyone had a reminder of Kylie.

Gage suggested we show the letter to Kylie’s parents, her sister, as well as Curtis and Lorrie, to help them understand the significance of what we wanted to do. So we had carved out time in the evenings, which meant later than usual nights. As I'd expected, there weren’t any dry eyes when the letter was being read. I had shed plenty through the week, rereading it over and over. A couple of times, I'd caught Gage doing the same, sitting in my office—the one place we could usually find privacy—his eyes glued to the paper.

Most people probably wouldn’t see the letter as much, but for us, it was a bit of closure. Though difficult to process, it was a part of Kylie we had when we thought we would get no more.

“Are they all gonna be at Pop’s house?” Kade asked.

“Nope. One at Pop’s, one at Grandpa Joe’s, and one here. We’ll do ours later.”

“Where’s Daddy?” Avery asked when I climbed into the driver’s seat.

“He’s at Pop’s house already. With the tree.”

Kade inhaled sharply, another dramatic effect of his. “What if he plants the tree without us?”

“He won’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

I laughed, briefly glancing back at them in the rearview mirror before turning my attention to the road.

“I wanna plant a huge tree,” Kade said, demonstrating his idea of huge by spreading his arms wide.

“We’ll have to see what Dad’s picked out,” I told them.

“I hope it’s giganormous,” Avery said softly.

“That’s not a word,” Kade told his sister.

“Uh-huh.”

“Nuh-uh.”

I managed to tune them out for the few minutes it took to get to my parents’.

When I pulled down the dirt drive, the first thing I noticed was all the vehicles parked near the house. It was Saturday, so this wasn’t a family dinner, yet I saw all the familiar ones: Kaleb’s Ford Expedition, Sawyer’s Chevy, Zane’s F250, Jessie’s Hyundai, Beau’s Escalade, Cheyenne’s Lexus. And a few more I would’ve been surprised to see on any given day.

“Everybody’s here!” Kade exclaimed. “Yay!”

If I had to guess, my son had already forgotten about planting the tree.

I didn’t bother reminding him as I got them out of the SUV, herding them toward the house, where my old man was sitting on the front porch, Kate in the rocking chair beside him.

“What’s all this?”

“It’s a party,” my daughter said easily.

“A party?”

She nodded curtly. “A tree-plantin’ party.”

“Is that right?” I looked at my father.

Pop’s gray eyebrows popped once. “I’m just here for the food.”