Chapter 15
Blythe turned nine.
She remembered the fire.
Not every detail.
Enough.
One evening she asked:
“Why did Honora hate Mommy?”
“She didn’t know your mother.”
“Then why throw things away?”
Hard.
“Because she thought making less room for your mother would make more room for her.”
Blythe frowned.
“That doesn’t make room.”
Exactly.
“What makes room?”
I thought.
“People moving things together.”
She considered.
Then dragged me into her bedroom.
Eliana’s cedar box still sat on one shelf.
Beside it were newer things.
School ribbons.
A terrible clay horse.
A photograph of Blythe and Mirella laughing.
One of me asleep on a couch that should have been destroyed immediately.
Blythe pointed.
“Room.”
Yes.
Memory does not occupy fixed square footage.
Love expands badly, unevenly, surprisingly.
Adults make it competitive because we fear comparison.
Children often do not until we teach them.
I kissed her forehead.
She wiped it off.
Nine.
Progress.
Then she asked:
“Will you marry?”
“Maybe.”
“Who?”
“No idea.”
“Mirella?”
I groaned.
She laughed.
Some questions never die.
Mirella, now household events coordinator, heard about it later and said:
“Please tell your daughter to stop arranging my future.”
I stared.
“The irony is painful.”
She laughed.
Good.
No romance.
No secret longing.
May you like
Just trust.
That relationship mattered enough without being forced into another category.
