Chapter 3
Eira had been corrected for three months.
Not every day.
That would have been obvious.
Ainsley was smarter.
When Eira said:
“Mommy liked this.”
Ainsley answered:
“Your first mommy.”
When she said:
“Mommy’s room.”
Ainsley corrected:
“Celeste’s old room.”
When she mentioned the wedding:
“Will Mommy see?”
Ainsley said:
“Mommy is a word for someone who is here.”
That one stayed with me.
I asked Eira later what she thought it meant.
She looked confused.
Then:
“Maybe Mommy stopped.”
Stopped.
As though death canceled motherhood.
I walked out of the room before my anger became louder than she deserved to hear.
Ainsley had not told her to forget Celeste.
She had done something more subtle.
She made remembering feel grammatically incorrect.
Children trust language.
Change the words long enough and you change what feels permitted.
I confronted Ainsley.
She cried immediately.
“I wanted there to be space for me.”
“There was.”
“No.”
Her voice cracked.
“There was space beside Celeste.”
That was the truth.
She did not want beside.
She wanted after.
A clean sequence.
First wife.
Dead.
Second wife.
Present.
No overlap.
May you like
But grief does not obey wedding etiquette.
Neither do children.
