“Different kinds of hard,” Maren says, nodding slowly. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Yeah,” I say. “It’s still so strange. The world just keeps going even though it’s fundamentally different now.”
“When my parents died, I was furious at strangers for laughing,” she says, moving to sit on the windowsill, one foot on the floor, the other pulled up. “How could anyone laugh when my entire world had just ended? Both of them, just erased in one car accident. I wanted to shake people, make them understand that everything was different now. That the world should stop spinning.”
I nod, remembering that same rage after Dad died. “The audacity of normalcy.”
“Exactly.” She picks at a splinter in the windowsill. “The weirdest thing now is I sometimes forget they’re gone. I’ll think ‘I should call Mom about this recipe’ or ‘Dad would love this song.’ Then I remember, and it’s like losing them all over again.”
“I think the hardest thing with Mom is that it feels like she started dying a long time ago,” I say, the words coming easier than expected. “She had good days still, I know that from your stories, but she stopped remembering me consistently. The mom who knew my name, who remembered teaching me to ride a bike, who called every Sunday to check in. That person was already gone.”
Maren’s quiet, just listening. Not trying to fix it or make it better.
“But now she’s actually gone,” I continue. “No more visits where maybe she’ll have a good day. No more hoping she’ll suddenly remember. Just... nothing.”
“The finality,” she says softly.
“Yeah.” I look around at the sunroom walls, all these boards I’ve been replacing for a house that will be sold anyway. “Now I’m rebuilding her favorite room and she’ll never see it. Never sit here again.”
“The fixing helps though, doesn’t it?” Maren asks. “Having something to do with your hands. Something you can control.”
“Yeah. It does.” I run my hand along one of the new boards, feeling the grain. “Even if it’s pointless.”
“It’s not pointless. You’re taking care of something she loved. That matters.” She pauses, then says, “You know what sometimes still gets me?”
I shake my head.
“That now there’s no safety net. No parent to call when life goes sideways. No one to ask for advice or approval. Just... nothing above us.” She laughs, but it’s hollow. “I’m twenty-eight and I still don’t feel like a real adult sometimes. Like I’m playing pretend at being a grown-up and everyone can tell.”
She’s describing exactly what’s been gnawing at me since Mom died. This feeling of being untethered, unprotected. Except she’s been living with it for ten years.
“You were so young when you lost yours,” I say. “Seventeen. Both of them at once. I can’t imagine.”
“It was surreal. One day I had parents, the next I was an orphan. I didn’t know how to do anything. Pay bills, plan a funeral.” She looks down at her hands, then back up at me. “I was lost for a long time. Then Susan just kind of appeared. Got me a job at the bar, offered me this cabin. She’d do things like pretend she bought too many groceries, and ask me to take them off her hands like I was doingherthe favor. All these lifelines when I was drowning.”
“That sounds like her.” I look around the sunroom, afternoon light filtering through the new windows. “She’d sit right there every morning.” I point to where her chair used to be. “Reading. Always reading. Mystery novels mostly, but reallyanything she could get from the library. Made me love books without even trying, just by always having one in her hand.”
“My mom was like that too,” Maren says. “Read to me every night when I was little. When I got older, we’d swap books, read the same things and talk about them.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Everything. Romance novels she’d hide from my dad. Historical fiction. Those thick biographies of women everyone forgot about.” She smiles. “Susan and I did that too, actually. Traded books constantly.”
“She mentioned that. Said you had good taste.” I remember Mom’s exact words, actually.That girl reads like she’s running out of time.
“She said that?” Maren’s voice goes soft.
“Multiple times. Usually while complaining that I never read the mysteries she recommended.” I pause, debating whether to share the next part. “She also said you were wasting your talent just reading other people’s stories.”
Maren goes still, her hand freezing on the windowsill. “She told you about my writing?”
“Just that you had talent. No specifics, no details. But she said you should be doing something with it.” I watch her face carefully, seeing the vulnerability flash across it before she cools her expression. “She was proud of the pieces you’d shown her. Said you had a gift for seeing people clearly.”
“That was a long time ago.” Her voice is quiet. “I used to write all the time as a kid and teenager. Filled notebooks with stories. But I’ve barely written anything in years. Just short half-finished things here and there that never go anywhere.”
“Why’s that?” I keep my tone neutral, genuinely curious.
She shrugs, but there’s nothing defensive in it. “Life got in the way. The bar takes everything I have. By the time I get home, I’m too tired to string two thoughts together, let alone write anything worth reading.”
