She didn’t push back. She just inhaled once, softly. “Ethan, guilt doesn’t stay stagnant. It grows when something inside you is trying to surface.”
I stared at my hands.
“And I think,” she continued gently, “yours has something to do with you avoiding visiting your brother and your sister-in-law.”
My stomach dropped.
“No,” I said immediately. “No. I can’t.”
“You can,” she said calmly. “And eventually, I think you should.”
My throat burned. I turned away from her, staring at the small watercolor painting on the wall, an abstract wash of blue and green.
“I haven’t been there,” I admitted quietly. “Not once.”
“I know,” she said.
“My parents go,” I added, bitter. “They bring flowers. They clean the markers. They… talk to them.”
“And you don’t feel you can.”
I barked a laugh. “I don’t feel like I deserve to even think about them.”
Nora leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on her knees. Her voice softened even more. “Do you believe you owe them an apology?”
“Yes,” I whispered, the word barely a sound.
“And do you believe avoiding their graves protects you from having to say it out loud?”
My chest constricted painfully.
She was right. And I hated that she was right.
“I can’t face them,” I said. “I wasn’t there when the accident happened. I wasn’t here when Mom and Dad had to bury their own son. I wasn’t there for Lily when it happened, and now I’m just...”
My breath hitched hard.
“I’m carrying out an act, like I can make up for it, but I can’t.”
“You’re not pretending,” Nora said. “You’re trying. There’s a difference.”
I shook my head. “Not enough of one.”
She let the silence stretch, my breathing loud in the silent room. Then:
“Ethan, grief is a house with many rooms. You’ve locked yourself in the loudest ones. The longer you stay there, the louder they become.”
She waited, patiently, not rushing. Then:
“I want you to consider going,” she said. “Not today. Not tomorrow. But soon. For them. For you.”
My breath stuttered again.
“Ethan,” she said softly, “you can’t keep avoiding the hard parts of your life. Eventually you have to walk through the hurt.”
A tear slipped down before I even registered it. I wiped it away roughly.
“I don’t think I can do it alone,” I confessed, voice raw.
