“I forgot all the words. Mid-verse. Froze like a deer. Ended up humming the Titanic theme for a full minute and then did jazz hands.”
I press my knuckles to my mouth like I’m stifling a cough.
She points her taco at me. “Don’t laugh.”
“I’m not laughing.”
“You’re absolutely laughing.”
I’m grinning. I don’t realize it until her expression shifts—something soft tugging at the corners of her mouth.
“Dad clapped the loudest,” she says, quieter now. “Even when the rest of the room was silent. Like, horrifyingly silent.”
She stops. Blinks hard. Her taco hovers midair.
“Mom would’ve said I was brave,” she adds. “Even if I sounded like a drowning squirrel.”
After a beat, her smile fades.
She looks sad.
She just stares at her taco like maybe if she focuses hard enough, the ache will fold itself away.
It’s the kind of strength people mistake for apathy. I know better.
I see it in my children sometimes. That tight jaw. That stretch of silence held like a shield.
Alya, when she pretends not to care about her mother’s absence.
Lev, when he smiles too fast and looks away.
Bella’s doing the same thing now. Grieving in real-time with a joke as armor.
And somehow, that undoes me more than tears ever could.
And suddenly, Bella feels more real.
Not just the woman in my bed.
Bella swallows and takes a sip from the plastic cup.
She jolts forward with a sputter, coughing like it’s trying to come out of her nose. Her face flushes red as she grabs a napkin, dabbing at her mouth like she’s holding onto the last scrap of dignity.
She waves me off before I can say anything. “I’m fine. Just forgot how to exist like a functioning adult.”
I don’t rush her. Just watch as she coughs once more, wipes her mouth, and stares down her half-eaten taco like it personally betrayed her.
I’ve never had patience for this kind of thing. Grief, feelings, slow bleeds. People could grow a third fucking arm, and I still wouldn’t care—so long as they showed up, got the job done.
But I wait, anyway.
Because it’s her.
“After they died, it changed fast. Mike and Peggy started making decisions like they owned us. One day, I was a teenager; the next, I was in charge of finances, homework, grief.”
I say nothing.
“I didn’t know how to save Julian from nightmares. Or Lila from her silence. But I knew how to cook. Clean. Sell. So, I did.”
