Slanted slightly right.
Clean.
Too small.
There were recipes written in different hands, with James’s comments squeezed along the edges.
Next to a chocolate dessert:
Emily will destroy this when she’s old enough.
I pressed my lips together.
Another page.
Bring Max when he stops throwing food intentionally.
I laughed through tears.
Max looked offended.
“I don’t throw food.”
“You were a baby.”
“That doesn’t count.”
I turned another page.
A pasta dish.
Liv would want more basil.
He knew me.
Of course he knew me.
And there, in the margins of a restaurant recipe book I had never seen, was evidence of ordinary conversations he had been having about us while we were living our ordinary life.
Then I reached the last marked page.
The date was one week before his final week with us.
Sophie’s first birthday coming up. Ask Marco if we can do something small here. She likes strawberries. Emily will want to help. Max will eat decorations before they reach the cake.
The room blurred.
I touched the words.
“He never got to do it.”
My voice broke.
Emily leaned toward me.
“We can.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
“Do Sophie’s birthday thing.”
Sophie held up three fingers.
“I’m three.”
“I know,” Emily said. “We can do a late one.”
Max nodded.
“Very late.”
Emily looked at me with the serious expression she had inherited from her father.
“Mr. Marco said we can come whenever we want.”
My chest hurt.
Not the sharp hurt of that first year.
A softer one.
A place where grief and love had stopped fighting for room.
Thomas finally spoke.
He had been silent most of the evening.
“Amanda.”
She looked at him.
“I think we owe Olivia an apology.”
Amanda’s face tightened.
“Thomas.”
“And the kids.”
She looked toward me.
Then toward Emily.
Max.
Sophie.
Before she could answer, Sophie slid down from her chair.
She picked up the white paper bag Marco had given her.
Walked around the table.
Then placed it beside Amanda’s plate.
Amanda looked down.
“What’s this?”
“My cookies.”
“I know, sweetie.”
“You can have them.”
Amanda blinked.
“Why?”
Sophie shrugged.
“Cookies make people nicer.”
Gerald covered his mouth.
Thomas looked away, smiling.
Even I laughed.
Amanda stared at the paper bag.
Then at Sophie.
Something in her expression loosened.
For all her polish, Amanda had spent two years grieving her brother too.
Not well.
Not kindly.
But grief had been there.
She blinked quickly.
“I’m sorry.”
The words were so quiet I almost missed them.
Then she looked at me.
“I’m sorry, Olivia.”
I waited.
“I’ve been awful.”
Margaret shifted.
Amanda continued before her mother could interrupt.
“I kept thinking James would hate seeing things become less…”
She searched for a word.
“Controlled?”
I offered.
Her mouth twisted.
“Yes.”
“James hated controlled.”
Gerald laughed again.
Amanda looked down.
“I know that now.”
She touched the cookie bag.
“I think I turned missing him into rules.”
That was honest.
I could work with honest.
She looked at my children.
“I shouldn’t have made you feel like you didn’t belong.”
Emily studied her.
“Okay.”
Amanda almost smiled.
Three adults had spent ten minutes struggling toward emotional accountability, and a seven-year-old accepted it with one word.
Maybe we made things too difficult.
Margaret did not apologize that night.
Not exactly.
She remained quiet through dessert.
But her fingers trembled when she turned the recipe book toward herself.
At one point, she touched James’s handwriting.
Then quickly pulled her hand back.
I noticed.
So did Gerald.
Neither of us said anything.