I followed him because there was nothing else left to follow. Through the yard, through the gap in the fence where Lily used to slip away laughing, into the forgotten lot I’d trained myself not to see. Each step felt like walking toward a ghost, toward something I wasn’t sure my heart could survive. But Baxter kept looking back, urging me on, as if he knew this was a road I had to take.

In the dim shed, among dust and old tools, I found the nest made of Lily’s clothes, the calico cat, the newborn kittens shivering into life. Her yellow sweater laid gently at their side, offered like a promise. Grief didn’t loosen its grip that day, but something shifted. The silence in our house was no longer the end of her story. It was the place her love had paused, waiting for me to find it again.