Chapter 11 - WHAT REMAINS

The house felt different afterward. Lighter. As if Grace’s spirit could finally rest. We cleaned out Vanessa’s things. Packed away Marcus’s gifts. Removed every trace of the people who had come to destroy what we had built.

Lily kept Teddy on her pillow. She still spoke to him sometimes, as if he were alive. I didn’t have the heart to tell her the camera was no longer recording. To her, he was still the one who had saved us.

One afternoon, I found her sitting on the floor of Grace’s study, pulling things out of an old wooden box. Letters. Photographs. A journal.

"Daddy?" she said, holding up a faded photograph. "Is this Mommy?"

I sat beside her. It was Grace, years younger, standing between Marcus and me at a beach. We looked happy. Carefree. Brothers.

"Yes," I said quietly. "That’s her."

"Why did Uncle Marcus do it?" Lily asked. "Didn’t he love us?"

I thought about how to explain it. How some people are never satisfied. How jealousy can eat a person alive until nothing remains but bitterness.

"He loved what we had," I said. "But he didn’t love us. And that is a very lonely way to live."

Lily considered that. She put the photo back in the box and picked up Teddy.

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"I love you," she said to me. "And I love Mommy. And Teddy. And that’s enough."

My throat tightened. I pulled her close. "Yes. It is."