EPILOGUE
SUMMER
One year later…
“Mommy! Mommy! Wake up!” Quinn bounces at the foot of the bed.
A groggy memory from a sunny playground two months ago plays in my mind.
Push me higher, Mommy,Quinn squealed as her feet sailed toward the clouds.
Here we go, I said as I pressed against her back and ran under the swing. Smiling on the outside while harboring guilt on the inside over stepping into a role that wasn’t mine to fill.
A week later, I found a box in the corner of the garage with a wooden frame inside of it. A picture of Eliza pushing a tiny Quinn on her first swing rested in the center. I stared through the glass at the frozen memory of her mom’s smile. I couldn’t help but think of all the moments that amazing woman would miss.
Swing rides and first days of school. New friends and first loves. Graduation and a wedding day.
Quinn has so much life yet to live, and my perception ofwhat that could look like with me in it changed as I admired that photo. The mom looking back at me would want someone to love her daughter through everything that comes next. She’d hope for someone to be there if she couldn’t. I know that to be true because that’s what mine has done for me. Loved me through a move and a divorce. On my best days and my worst ones too.
It’s what I promise to do for the little girl Eliza had to leave behind.
“We’re supposed to be letting her sleep in. That’s what you do on Mother’s Day.” Everett’s voice pulls me from the memory. He drags Quinn off the comforter as she claws to stay put.
“Come see!” Quinn demands.
Sorry, Everett mouths as I rub the sleep from my eyes.
Our new king-sized mattress dips when I sit up, and a smile stretches across his face with the press of a button. A gentlehumsignals the retraction of roman shades, allowing light to filter into our bedroom.
He sighs. “That will never get old.” One of the many features Everett loves about this house.
We made it—barely—until my six-month lease was up before I gave my notice to Emma and finished out the last leg of Everett’s US and England tours with him and Quinn. Wade and Caroline came along too. They’ve been there for every one of Everett’s shows, all of Quinn’s speech therapy appointments, and the day I moved my things into this house. They’ve become like a second set of parents to me now that mine live across the country.
“Okay, I’m coming!” I tell Quinn, draping a robe around my nightgown as she drags me by the hand to the sliding glass door. I stop before I even make it outside, cupping my mouth. Quinn bounds through the opening, spreading her arms out wide at the display of three dozen pink peony plants bunched on the patio.
“I had a little more to work with this year,” Everett says, tucking his hands in his sweatpants pockets.
My favorite flowers.
“That’s not it!” Quinn stomps her rain boot impatiently. “Come see!”
“Oh, sorry!” I stumble out the door as she tugs me down to her level. She points to a petal that’s starting to bud as a dot of red scurries across the blush-colored flower.
“There! See it?”
I do. A tiny ladybug with one black spot on its back.
I believe in signs from the universe. This one came from her mom.
“Ladybugs symbolize love and luck, you know,” I say to Quinn, helping hold her hand steady as she tries to encourage tiny legs to climb on her finger.
“Did Henry teach you that?” Everett teases behind me.
I smirk over my shoulder. “Maybe.”
A flash of orange dives in front of us and pounces on the flower, sending petals scattering and a pair of wings flying.
“No, Millie! No! No!” Quinn scolds. She sighs as the ladybug soars toward the clouds.
