Page 133 of Made for Mayhem

“We tell happy stories,” I decided. “Silly stories. We keep her alive in the parts that made us love her the most. Every time we tell one, she gets a little more real instead of less.”

“Like what?”

“Well,” I said, thinking back on a lifetime of memories with my favorite person, “the summer Violet was ten and I was seven, we moved into a new house. Our garage was full of empty boxes, and your mom saw so much possibility. We spent a whole day taping them together, turning it into a tour bus.”

Ty chuckled, but Junie looked up at me. “Why did you make a tour bus?”

“Obviously we were going to be famous pop stars named The Sparkle Sisters.” I held my palms up in little jazz-hands, and Junie giggled. “We spent three straight days decorating it—flowers, stars, our fake signatures—until there wasn’t an inch of brown cardboard left. Every night after dinner we dragged our boom box into the garage, draped ourselves in feather boas, and practiced our choreography.”

I picked up Junie’s hand, pretending to dance with it. “Your mom loved to dance, didn’t she?”

“She did. We danced a lot.”

“One night we even dragged our sleeping bags inside the biggest box, zipped ourselves in, and slept there, pretending we were on the road to Hollywood. Violet woke me up at three a.m. screaming because a spider had walked across her face. We laughed so hard we almost wet ourselves, then fell back asleep holding hands through the spider trauma.”

Junie giggled so hard she had to push her glasses back up her nose. “Did you really sleep in a box?”

“We absolutely did,” I said, smiling at the memory. “Your mom insisted we needed the authentic experience. Grammy winners don’t sleep in beds, they sleep in luxury tour buses made of refrigerator boxes.”

Junie’s went next, launching into the Easter Violet let her mix the egg dye by herself that ended in disaster when she dyed her arms blue from the elbow down.

Ty idly traced circles on the back of Junie’s hand where it rested on his chest. “The day I met your mom,” he said, “I was convinced my life was over. Hockey career done, body broken, came home to this quiet street to lick my wounds and scare children with my grumpy face.”

Junie poked him in the ribs. “You’re not grumpy.”

“Back then, I was doing my best impression. But she came over with a tray of cookies that looked better than they tasted.”

I snorted.

Junie grinned. “She burned a lot of cookies, but sometimes they were okay.”

“You’re right, bug.” Ty kissed her head. “But do you know what I remember most about that day?”

“What?” Junie asked.

“Behind your mom was this tiny kindergartener with a sand bucket full of wildflowers.” His eyes went soft, the gold flecks catching the last of the hallway light as he brushed her blonde hair off her forehead. “She looked up at me, squinted real serious, and said, ‘Why do you have a barn if you don’t have any animals?’”

He huffed a quiet laugh. “No hello. No fear. Just immediate disappointment in my life choices. And I remember thinking—well, hell. Guess I better fix that.”

He glanced at me over Junie’s head. Something heavy and unspoken passed between us, landing warm in my chest like a small stone dropped into still water.

Junie yawned, huge and dramatic, and within minutes her breathing evened out—glasses crooked, mouth open, one small hand fisted in my shirt, her legs thrown over Ty’s like he was the world’s largest body pillow.

I reached over and gently slid her glasses off, folding the earpieces and setting them next to the bowl of mac and cheese. The room was dark now, just the silver of moonlight sliding in through the blinds.

Across from us, Violet’s urn caught the light, the floral-painted ceramic seeming far too happy for the reality contained within.

Ty’s hand stilled for half a second at my hip, like he felt it too.

I stared at the urn until my eyes watered again, but no tears came. I was hollowed out, nothing left but ache.

Still, the sight didn’t knife me the way it had last night.

Maybe because Junie’s warm weight anchored me to the mattress, or because Ty’s arm rested across Junie’s back so his big, calloused hand lay on my hip.

Everything still hurt, raw and exposed. Maybe it always would.

But the three of us, together, felt better.