Page 40 of What Remains of Grace

Jenna didn’t ask who Emmie meant; she didn’t need to.

Emmie folded the note carefully and set it in the KEEP box. “That one stays.”

Jenna nodded, blinking hard. “Definitely.”

They worked in silence for a while after that, the kind of silence that wasn’t empty but simply full of everything they didn’t have to say.

* * *

As the day stretched on, the boxes were lined along the wall. KEEP looked like an attic’s worth of memory. DONATE held almost nothing.

Emmie sat cross-legged on the floor, sifting through recipe cards. “She always wrote herself these notes. Like, ‘add more lemon if life feels heavy’? What does that even mean?”

Jenna laughed quietly. “I think she wanted to remind herself to live like she baked: add more of what makes it bright.”

Cole appeared in the doorway, wiping his hands. “That’s solid advice.”

They both turned. He leaned one shoulder against the frame, sunlight cutting across the rolled sleeve of his shirt. Sweat clung to the front, the fabric darkened and stretched across the hard lines of his chest. When he moved, it carried a clean, earthy scent of salt, pine, and sun.

“I can’t throw anything away,” Emmie said abruptly.

He nodded once. “Then don’t.”

She frowned. “But we can’t keep it all either.”

“No,” he said. “But you’ll know what matters when you touch it.”

Jenna met his eyes for a second too long. She got the sense that he wasn’t talking about baking supplies anymore. There was something practiced in the way he said it, like the words had belonged to him long before they belonged to this room.

* * *

Later that day, Jenna moved to the office. She adjusted the desk toward the window, wiped the surface clean, and set her laptop in its corner. The hum when it powered on felt almost foreign here. The soft glow of the screen touched the curtains, the bookshelves, the bed she’d made up against the opposite wall.

It wasn’t perfect, but it looked like a room that could hold both of them, Grace’s memory and Jenna’s work.

Emmie appeared in the doorway, hair pulled back. “Wow. This looks . . . normal again.”

“That was the goal.”

Emmie smiled gently. “Mom would’ve liked that. You keeping her chair?”

“For now. It’s too low, but I can live with it.”

“Good.” Emmie hesitated, glancing around. “You know, it doesn’t smell sad anymore.”

Jenna laughed under her breath. “That’s the nicest compliment I’ve heard all week.”

Emmie rolled her eyes. “Well, don’t ruin it.” She backed out, leaving the door open behind her.

Jenna turned back to the desk, staring at the obscure reflection of herself in the laptop screen. For the first time, this office didn’t feel like a museum. It felt like work waiting to be done.

By the time the light shifted toward evening, she felt the easy pace of progress: boxes labeled, drawers organized, the satisfying snap of lids sealing things that finally had somewhere to belong. Emmie had gone to her friend Casey’s house in Dunedin, leaving Jenna alone in the house for the first time all day.

The quiet was different now, less heavy, almost companionable. Jenna closed her laptop and stretched, muscles stiff from the too-low office chair. Through the open window, she could hear low voices outside, the murmur of Cole’s crew wrapping up for the day. Hammers fell silent one by one. A truck door slammed. Then another.

She told herself not to look. But she did.

He was crossing the yard, clipboard in hand, ball cap pulled backward, shirt damp with sweat and clinging to his shoulders. The late sun caught his skin, tracing a warm sheen across his neck and jaw. He paused to speak to one of the guys, that easy, low laugh carrying just enough to reach her through the window.