Page 50 of Remain
She pads through my house barefoot like she belongs there, hair loose, sweater slipping off one shoulder as she makes tea she forgets to drink. We talk in low voices about logistics, funding and how The Christmas Kindness Drive is reaching towns Diane never got the chance to touch.
Paris is next. Savannah always wanted to take her there but never got the chance. Little does she know I’m taking them both there next year, Diane in spirit, for Sav’s birthday. I may be small town but I’m a big dreamer too. I’ve already booked the flights, the hotels, the surprise dinners. All of the details down to the little black dress I plan to leave on the hotel bed with a note directing her to slip it on and meet me out on the town.
When our brains can’t retain big dreams and bigger plans any longer in our days, things go quiet as nightfalls in the ways that matter the most.
She kisses me like she’s been thinking about it all day, very slow and intentional, transporting me back to when I was eighteen and didn’t think life could be any sweeter than it was.
When she straddles my lap, her hands warm at the back of my neck, there’s nothing hurried in it, only hunger that trusts it won’t be taken away. She fits against me like something that always knew where it belonged and I fit inside of her like my body was made for hers.
We don’t pretend the mornings aren’t coming. We don’t pretend distance doesn’t exist. We make love like people who understand time is precious but not fragile. We arepeople who know staying isn’t the same thing as being trapped.
I wake up with her hair draped across my chest, her leg thrown over mine, the taste of her still on the tip of my tongue and I think to myself, every single time, that this is what choosing looks like.
This is what being chosen feels like.
The community centerhas a way of becoming part of you if you let it.
Between the houses I build, the flights to New York just to see Savannah, and the quiet hum of The Christmas Kindness Drive, this place has worked itself into my life. It feels like my second home.
I’m stacking empty boxes when I notice my mother watching Savannah.
She’s standing near the long table, sleeves pushed up, laughing at something Mrs. Kincaid says, her hands moving as she talks. The color is back in her cheeks again. Life is returning to her. The grief is still there but it’s not swallowing her whole.
I notice my mother in the corner of the room watching Savannah.
Sav’s hand drifts, unconsciously, to her stomach. There’s nothing there yet, no announcement, no certainty, but it’s a habit she’s developed lately, like her body already knows something her mouth hasn’t dared to say. We’ve talked about it, about what it would mean to bring new life into a world that can be both cruel and kind.
I see the moment hit her. My mom doesn’t interrupt. She doesn’t call Savannah over. She simply steps closer andreaches out, her fingers closing around Savannah’s hand like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
Savannah looks down, surprised, then smiles, that soft, unguarded one that always weakens me. She squeezes back without thinking. Trust, in its purest form.
For a second, I swear I see it too.
The past and the future braided together.
Everything my mother survived. Everything Savannah lost. Everything that somehow still found its way here.
Savannah is called away a moment later, drawn back into the orbit of planning and lists and people who need her attention and direction.
My mother doesn’t look away right away. When she finally turns to me, her eyes are bright, not with tears, exactly, but with something heavier. “She would’ve been a beautiful mother.”
“She still will be,” I reply, matching her soft tone.
This isn’t hope. It’s knowing.
My mother smiles then, slow, certain, the same smile she wore the morning I opened a red truck and learned what it felt like to be chosen. “Yes,” she says. “She will.”
Months later,Savannah and I stand on a piece of land just outside town. There’s nothing built there yet, it’s snow, dirt and a hell of a lot of possibility. I sketch in the air as I talk, ideas free flowing out of me, where the windows would go, how the light would hit the kitchen in the morning and then how it would shift as the sun retires, hitting her body in the bedroom under the light of the moon. Everything from where a garden should be on the outside to where and how long of a dining table would fit on the inside.
She listens, eyes shining. “One day.”
I don’t rush it. I’ve learned the best things are built when you let them be.
I picture my mother holding a grandchild here someday, teaching them how to give without being seen and teaching them Diane’s rules before they ever know her name. I imagine Savannah standing in the doorway, watching, her hand resting at her throat the way it does when something moves her.
I imagine a tree as tall as a New York City skyscraper planted in the backyard, planted for Diane. A tree her grandchildren can climb and carve their names into, one strong enough to hold swings and strands of Christmas lights that never quite come down. A tree that grows its rings the way she taught us how to live, slowly and generously, rooted in love.
And deep in the stable part of me, the place that doesn’t waver, I know that when the time comes, I’ll build that house with my own two hands. Not to keep Savannah, not to bind her to this place, but to meet her there, exactly as she is.