She knew. Somehow, she knew this was her mother's.
Anna had followed her, her expression unreadable. "This was Mommy's special chair," Daisy said, her voice small but clear.
Anna knelt beside her. "It's a wonderful chair. It looks like a chair where amazing stories happen."
Daisy nodded solemnly.
Just then, the first of the Saturday morning children began to trickle in, accompanied by parents who glanced at us with curious, then sympathetic eyes. A low buzz of energy filled the room.
Daisy looked from the gathering children to Anna,then back to the chair. A decision crystallized. She tugged Anna's hand. "Sit here.” She exclaimed. “Read."
Anna's eyes flew to mine, wide with panic. She took a physical step back, shaking her head. "Oh, Daisy, I couldn't. That's your mommy's—" Her voice dropped to a whisper. "I can't sit in her chair, Jack. Please don't make me."
All eyes were on us. Margaret watched. The children were settling on the colorful rug, expectant. Daisy was already pulling a well-loved copy of Where the Wild Things Are from a basket, pressing it into Anna's hands.
Something in me tightened, a reflexive urge to say no. To say ‘absolutely not’, to protect Elena's space from this woman's presence. This woman who'd been so near her tragedy. Who'd stayed silent. Who had no right to touch anything Elena had built.
But Daisy's expectant face was turned up to Anna. The children were settling on the rug, waiting. And Margaret was watching me with those knowing eyes.
What would refusing look like? Dragging Daisy out? Explaining to a room full of five-year-olds why the story lady couldn't read?
I gave a single, stiff nod.
Anna took a shaky breath and lowered herself into the chair. For a moment, she just sat, looking small and lost. Then Daisy, without hesitation, climbed into her lap, settling herself just as she had with Elena a hundred times.
Anna opened the book. She cleared her throat. "The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind..." she began, her voice hesitant.
Then something shifted. She looked down at Daisy, who was leaning back against her, utterly trusting. She looked out at the circle of upturned, eager faces. Her own face softened.
"...and another," she continued, her voice gaining strength and playful drama. “By the time Max sailed off through night and day and in and out of weeks," she was doing voices. A grumpy, roaring Max. Whispering, chattering Wild Things.
I watched her make claws with her hands for the Wild Things. I watched a little boy in the front row copy her movements, giggling. I watched Daisy's face light up the way it used to when Elena read.
She wasn't just reading. She was performing.
And I was frozen. The afternoon light from the window caught her dark hair, the warm brown of her eyes alight with kindness. Daisy was perfectly still, a small, contented weight in Anna's lap, a faint smile on her lips as she listened to the story she must have heard from her mother a dozen times.
It was the most beautiful and devastating thing I had seen in two years.
Margaret appeared silently at my elbow. She didn't look at me. She watched Anna, her eyes shimmering. "She's a natural," she whispered. "Elena would have adored her."
The words were a scalpel, slipped between my ribs. My hands clenched into fists at my sides. Margaret didn't know. She had no idea who Anna was, what Anna had done, or had failed to do.
Elena would have adored her.
The sentence played on repeat, each iteration more poisonous than the last.
The story ended to enthusiastic applause. Anna, flushed and breathless, looked dazed. The children swarmed her, offering drawings, asking if she was the new story lady, if she would come back next week.
I couldn't move. I felt trapped, like an outsider in my own wife's legacy.
The rest of the visit passed in a blur. Margaret gave us a tour, showing Daisy the craft tables, the cubbies with kids' names, and the "Book Hospital" where Elena would mend torn pages. Finally, we entered the small, sun-drenched office at the back.
Elena's office.
It was neat but lived-in. A child's drawing was pinned to a corkboard. Daisy wandered to a cardboard box tucked beside the desk, labeled "Photos - Misc." She peered inside, then carefully pulled out a framed picture.
It was Elena, visibly pregnant, maybe seven months along. She was wearing a Bright Pages t-shirt, her hands cradling her belly, her head thrown back in laughter, radiant with joy.
