Ethan clung desperately to his grandfather’s coat and looked directly at his father
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Chapter 7 / 17
Chapter 7
Ethan refused to sleep alone for three weeks.
Reasonable.
I slept in the chair beside his bed the first two nights.
Mark offered the third.
Ethan said no.
Good.
His choice.
Mark looked wounded.
Also reasonable.
Consequences can hurt without being unfair.
We restored Elise’s room slowly.
Not as a shrine.
That mattered.
Blue paint stayed because Ethan liked it.
We brought back photographs.
Some clothes went to storage.
Some books returned.
The wooden train went on Ethan’s shelf.
He held it for an hour the first night.
Then forgot it under the couch the next day.
Children are miraculous that way.
May you like
Objects matter intensely until they don’t.
Adults are the ones who build museums out of pain.
