Page 80 of The Story Between Us

“You were both so…alive. Even with everything Emma was going through, even with all the hospital visits and the uncertainty, you were alive. You had hope. And being around you that summer—both of you—it helped me remember that grief doesn’t have to be the end of the story.”

The kitchen was quiet. Afternoon light slanted through the window, catching dust motes, turning everything gold.

“We don’t grieve the way the world grieves,” Livvie said softly. “We grieve with hope. Because we know this isn’t all there is. We’ll see them again. Your mom will see Emma again. You’ll see Emma again.”

Nate’s eyes were bright. He looked away, jaw working.

“Your protégé,” she said. “He needs to know there’s life after loss. That carrying someone’s legacy doesn’t mean being destroyed by their absence. He has to face the one who killed Morvain—but more than that, he has to face his own grief. And when he does, he’ll find that it doesn’t kill him. It transforms him.”

Silence stretched between them.

Then Nate pushed back from the table. “I need to—” He stopped. Started again. “I think I know how to write it.”

“Go.”

He was already moving toward the office. At the doorway, he paused. Looked back at her.

“Livvie.”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

And then he was gone, the office door clicking shut behind him.

Three hours later, the light was fading and Nate was still writing.

Livvie had washed the dishes, read another chapter, taken the dogs for a short walk around the property. Through the office door came the steady click of keys, the occasional pause, the rhythm of a writer who’d finally found his way into the heart of the story.

He didn’t need her right now.

The thought should have felt like victory. Instead, it left her hollow.

She knocked softly on the office door. “Nate? I’m heading back to Lila’s.”

A pause in the typing. “Okay.”

“There’s leftover soup in the fridge. And the scone⁠—”

“Got it. Thanks.”

She waited for more. For him to look up, to smile, to acknowledge what had passed between them at the kitchen table. “Don’t stay up too late.”

The typing resumed. She should probably do a victory pump. Instead, she quietly let herself out.

Aunt Lila’s cottage was warm with lamplight, the smell of turpentine and tea mingling in the air. Livvie found her aunt in the sunroom studio, perched on a stool before an easel, a half-finished illustration glowing under the work light.

“There you are.” Lila didn’t look up from her brushwork. “How’s our author?”

“Writing. In fact, he’s on a hot streak.” Livvie sank into the worn armchair by the window, her spot now after more than a week of evenings spent exactly like this. “He figured something out. About his character. About himself, I think.”

“That’s how it works.” Lila added a delicate line to whatever she was painting—a children’s book, something with rabbits and autumn leaves. “The story teaches you what you need to learn. If you’re brave enough to let it.”

Livvie pulled her phone from her pocket, looked at the email she’d sent earlier. The young writer. Nora Whitcomb. The words she’d offered so casually, not realizing how much they might mean.

“Lila?”

“Mmm?”