I don’t move straight away.
Dane is still asleep beside me, sprawled in a way that tells me he finally let himself rest. One arm flung out, the sheet twisted around his waist, his chest rising and falling slow and even. I trace the familiar lines of him with my eyes. The man who stayed. The man who never once told me to hurry.
Outside, light spills across the deck where the old loveseat sits, its cushions faded from years of sun and salt. My grandparents used to sit there every evening, knees touching, sharing one mugof tea between them like it was a ritual they’d invented just for themselves. I can almost hear them now. Soft laughter. The radio low. Someone always humming.
This house holds them. It holds me. And it holds Gracie.
I slip out of bed quietly and pad down the hall. The floor creaks in the places it always has. I don’t avoid them. I never have. The creaks feel like recognition.
I sit on the couch with my laptop and open the folder I named weeks ago but haven’t dared to fully enter.
Gracie’s Sanctuary.
The words still press against my ribs, but they don’t steal my breath anymore.
A few weeks after Blake handed me the divorce papers, after he demanded we move Gracie to a cemetery like she was something that needed to betidied away, I had the dream.
I’m standing in this house. The walls are bare. The rooms are cold. And then I hear crying. Not loud. Just enough to pull me forward. I follow it into the bathroom, where the light is harsh and white and unforgiving, the same way it was in the hospital. The same way it always is when there’s no room for softness.
But when I touch the wall, it warms.
The tiles soften. The crying quiets. And the house exhales.
I woke up knowing, with a certainty that didn’t ask for permission.
Gracie stays here.
Not hidden. Not moved. Not silenced.
This house becomes something else.
I start typing.
Builders. Structural assessments. Garden plans. Funding applications. Press releases. Hospital contacts. Big soft beds that will hold them the parents and their beautiful sleeping baby. Deep baths. Warm teas. Blankets that don’t feel clinical. Journals thick enough to catch grief without tearing.
Outside, a bird calls. Somewhere down the road, a car door slams. Life continues, unbothered by the magnitude of my resolve.
Behind me, the kettle clicks on.
Dane moves through the kitchen barefoot, sleeves rolled, quiet like he knows this moment belongs to me. He pours water slowly. Adds honey. Drops chamomile in with care. When he sits beside me, he doesn’t look at the screen first. He looks at my face.
“You’re starting already,” he says softly.
“I can’t not,” I reply. “If I don’t do it now, I’ll lose the nerve.”
He nods. “Tell me what you need.”
That’s it. That’s always it.
Notslow down. Notare you sure. Just tell me.
“I need the house cleared,” I say. “Not emptied. Just…shifted. I need to move in with you for a while.”
His hand finds mine. Thumb brushing over my knuckles. “You’re already home with me,” he says. “This is just logistics. Also, Peach, there is no such thing as a while.. There is, though forever”
The day unfolds gently.
I pack the things that belong to my private life. Clothes. Notebooks. Photos that aren’t ready to be shared with grief-strangers yet. I pause at the hallway wall where my height ismarked in pencil from childhood, my grandparents’ handwriting beside each line. I don’t erase it. I never will.
