Page 92 of What Remains of Grace

“I know you didn’t, sweetheart,” he said softly. “Just . . . let us stay close, okay? You don’t have to carry all of this alone.”

Relief loosened something small and stubborn inside her. “Thanks, Dad,” she said quietly. “Really.”

They said their goodbyes, and she ended the call.

Her dad always had a way of clearing the fog around her.

She stayed there with the phone still warm in her hand, staring at the dashboard like it held the rest of the answers she’d been avoiding. Her dad’s voice lingered in the car, in her chest, in the part of her that still felt tender and bruised. He had always been able to reach her that way, not with pressure, not with insistence, but with quiet truth.

Her parents had made everything special. Not out of perfection, but out of consistency, the kind that came from two people who genuinely loved being parents. Holidays were events in their house, no matter how tight money was or how chaotic schedules got. Her mom had decorated the table every Thanksgiving as if Martha Stewart were personally stopping by.

Her dad strung Christmas lights with the dangerous confidence of a man who’d fallen off a ladder twice and learned absolutely nothing.

She remembered her dad running beside her bike on the street out front, one hand gripping the back of the seat, shouting, “Pedal, Jen! Don’t overthink it—pedal!”

She remembered the triumphant scream she’d let out when she realized he wasn’t holding on anymore.

He’d taught her how to tie her shoes, how to bait a hook, how to blend a drywall seam so clean you couldn’t see where the joint ended. He’d pretended not to see her crying in the garage the day Emmie was born, terrified of losing her place in Grace’s life. He’d just handed her a stack of sandpaper and said, “Here. This fixes most things.”

Her mom had been the soft counterweight. Girl Scout troop leader, bakery taste-tester, chief planner of every sleepover she and Grace conned her into hosting. She cooked dinner every night, real meals, even when Jenna and Grace came storming through the house, grabbing snacks before running back out for practices, clubs, boys, drama . . . all the frantic little storms of teenage life. Her mother never complained. She just smiled and said, “At least you’re here.”

Vacations were the same: imperfect and perfect all at once. They always began with her parents bickering in the front seat—

“You missed the turn, Bob.”

“If I missed the turn, it’s because you gave me the wrong directions. You have the map, Lillian.”

“If you would listen—”

“I am listening!”

But the second they arrived, the second the car doors opened and the humidity hit them, and the suitcases were dumped onto rental-house floors, it was nothing but laughter.

Always laughter, card games, beach towels that never seemed to dry, and Grace burning the tops of her feet every single year. Brooks cannonballing into any body of water he could find, and her mom rolling her eyes at all of them while secretly loving every second.

Her parents had built a childhood for them, a full, loud, ordinary one. Love woven through the center of every day.

She thought of him and her mother, two people whose entire lives had been shaped around raising children. They had built their identity on it, brick by brick, habit by habit, sacrifice by sacrifice. It wasn’t just something they were good at; it was their greatest joy, their greatest accomplishment. They had raised three good human beings. Better than good. Jenna knew she was damaged and avoiding therapy like a professional, but she also knew she wasn’t cruel or selfish or careless. And her brother and sister… God, they had been extraordinary.

She pressed her fingers to her eyes.

What must it have been like for her parents?

To spend decades building something so precious, a family, a whole world, only to have two-thirds of it torn out from under them? She imagined it like spending decades constructing a cathedral, stone by stone, protecting it from every storm, only to watch it be bulldozed to the ground before it was even finished. Except people weren’t buildings. They were infinitely more fragile, more valuable, and impossible to rebuild from blueprints.

So how did anyone survive that kind of loss?

How did her parents get up every morning and carry on? How did they smile for Emmie? For her?

She remembered Emmie’s voice, sharp and grieving, refusing to pretend anymore. But now the questions echoed in her own mind: What’s the alternative? Dying young? Staying sad? Throwing away the years she still had when they never got them?

Was that what she was doing? Wasting the life she still had? Pushing everyone away?

Cole. Her parents. Even herself.

Her parents were quietly apologizing for not calling her more, and she was the one who had trained them to keep their distance. She’d made it easy for everyone to assume she was a flight risk.

And Cole . . . God.