Page 33 of Remain

Savannah hesitates. “You… you came for the deliveries?”

My mom nods once, a soft chuckle slipping out. “I always do, dear. Every year.”

I swallow hard. The words lodge somewhere deep inside of my stomach, pressing, insistent. Every year because of your mother. Every year because she taught us how.

The room goes quiet, heavy in that specific way griefsettles when it’s shared. I stand there uselessly, hands clenched at my sides, every instinct screaming to move closer, to shield Savannah from the weight of it even though I know I can’t.

Then my mom lets go of one of her hands and reaches into her coat pocket.

My chest tightens.

I know what she’s about to do.

She pulls out the photographs, small and worn, corners softened from years of being carried, and presses them into Savannah’s palm with a certainty that makes my throat burn. This part has always been inevitable. We’ve both known it.

Savannah looks down. “It’s… photos.”

The room feels like it’s holding its breath, like everything is waiting on what happens next. I hear my mom turn toward me before I fully register the sound of my own pulse in my ears.

“Erik,” she says, gentle but firm. “I think it’s time.”

My jaw tightens. My chest feels too full, like there isn’t room for the truth and my lungs at the same time. I force a slow breath through my nose, steadying myself the way I’ve practiced for years.

“Time for what?” Savannah asks, but I can hear it in her voice. She already knows this is something big.

No one answers.

The photographs shake in her hands as she stares down at them, and I see it all at once, every year layered on top of the next. Her mom kneeling in front of me, explaining that accepting help wasn’t weakness. The first box we packed together. The way the drive grew because people believed in it. In her. In us.

I want to tell her everything.

I want to tell her how her mother changed the shape of my life. How I stayed because leaving felt like erasing something sacred.

I want to tell her so much, but this moment isn’t about what I need to say. It’s about what Savannah is ready to hear.

14

Savannah

The photograph is olderthan I am. Its edges have been worn soft, thinned by time and by careful hands that understood it mattered. The colors have faded into something close to sepia, as if the world itself was quieter then, less certain, more tentative.

I recognize the place immediately.

Levin’s Toys.

Not as it is now, bright and crowded and humming with December life, but smaller. Sparer. The shelves are too bare to feel festive, the space still learning what it will one day become. Behind the counter stands a younger Ruth Levin, her hair darker, her posture already sharp, her eyes already kind.

And standing in front of her

my mother.

Diane.

She’s young here, unsettlingly so, younger than I’ve everseen her in any photograph. My mother never shared much about her childhood, and I learned early not to ask. She stands awkwardly, hands clasped in front of her as if she doesn’t know where they belong, where she belongs. Her coat looks too thin for the season, and her smile is cautious, tentative.

Ruth Levin is handing her something.

A toy.