Another week down in Tampa and I was eager to get back to what waited for me at home.
Yet the second I walked through the door, I knew something was wrong.
The house was too bright.
Every curtain had been pulled back, allowing sunlight to flood the space in wide, unapologetic bands, catching on the hardwood floors, the picture frames, the edges of furniture that usually lived in shadow. The air felt lighter. Open. But the light, so relentless and so bright, felt almost intrusive.
For years, I’d kept the curtains drawn, never opening them back up after the night I’d found Elena on the bathroom floor. Now the light seemed to expose everything I’d tried to keep hidden. It illuminated the dust in the air, disturbed the secrecy of my grief. The mustiness clung to the new openness. And suddenly, I felt seen, in a way I wasn’t ready for.
I stood in the middle of the living room with my bag still slung over my shoulder, my chest tightening as unease crept in.
This wasn’t how the house was supposed to look.
“Dani?” I called out.
“In here,” she answered, from down the now brightly lit hall.
She stood near the windows in Harper’s room, one hand still on the curtain tie, and a smile on her face as she saw me. Sunlight framed her silhouette, highlighting the wispy flyaways that escaped the clip holding her hair in place. For a fleeting second, I was struck by how beautiful she way and the way the light softened her. It made me notice the beauty in her posture, the gentleness in the slope of her shoulders, the way her gaze flickered with something unspoken.
“Daddy!” Harper bounced up. “Look! Dani helped me make space for my art corner!”
I tightened my grip on the strap of my bag, fingers digging into the fabric until my knuckles ached.
“Hey, bug,” I said, keeping my voice level. “Looks… different.”
Dani stood near the doorway now, hands tucked into the pockets of her jeans like she wasn’t sure where to put them.
My eyes kept scanning. Taking inventory.
“I hope it’s okay,” Dani said carefully. “I didn’t throw anything away. I just… I, um, I opened things up a little.”
My jaw set, frustration prickling beneath my confusion.
“Why are the curtains open?”
She hesitated. “It felt… dark in here.”
Harper beamed. “We didn’t throw anything away! Just moved it.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
But my body didn’t agree; tension battled with the effort to stay composed.
I kissed Harper’s head, told her to finish her drawing, then stepped back into the hallway with Dani trailing behind me.
That was when I saw it.
The hallway table—empty.
The small blue ceramic bowl Elena used to keep her keys in was gone.
“Where is it?” I asked.
Dani blinked. “Huh? The bowl?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, I put it in the cabinet. Harper kept knocking the table and I was worried she would knock it over.”
