Chapter 26 - Moving Forward Without Them
We started making new routines.
Sunday mornings became pancake mornings — just the two of us. Grace helped mix the batter while I made coffee. We ate at the kitchen table and talked about everything except the family we had left behind.
Grace joined the art club at school and made two new friends. She started sleeping with the light off again. The nightmares became less frequent.
One afternoon, she came home excited about a school project.
“We’re supposed to draw our family,” she said. “Can I draw us?”
I smiled. “Of course.”
She worked on it at the kitchen table for almost an hour. When she finished, she showed me.
It was a picture of the two of us standing in front of our apartment building. She had drawn herself with her glasses on, smiling. I was next to her, holding her hand.
There were no other people in the picture.
Just us.
I felt my eyes sting.
“It’s perfect,” I said.
Grace looked at it proudly.
“I think so too,” she said. “Because this is my real family now.”
I pulled her into a hug and held her for a long time.
She was right.
May you like
We had lost a lot.
But what we had left was more than enough.
