I moved through the service like a ghost. Faces came and went—neighbors, cousins, kind people with casserole voices—offering the same tender words that slid off me like rain. I nodded, thanked, hugged when hugged, and kept my eyes on the empty space where my daughter should have been.

The drive home was silent. No radio, no talk. Grief makes you superstitious; you start to believe that quiet can hold the world still, the way a hand can still a trembling glass. I pulled into the driveway and sat for a moment gripping the steering wheel, gathering the courage to walk into a house that suddenly felt too large for one person’s heart.

Then I saw it. A tent in the backyard.

Not the kind you toss in a trunk for a weekend. This was big and bright—carnival stripes, little flags hiccuping in the