Page 51 of Remain

Tonight,the square is quiet again. Snow falls slow and deliberate, the lights humming softly overhead. Savannah stands beneath them, laughing with Ruth Levin and Mrs. Kincaid about something that absolutely doesn’t matter and somehow matters more than anything.

She looks over and finds me watching. She always knows when I’m looking at her. She always has.

She smiles, not the careful version she once wore, but the unguarded one. The one that saysI’m here.I’m choosing this.I’m not losing myself to do it.

She didn’t come back to stay. She came back to build something that could move.

And somehow, without ever asking her to be less, without ever asking her to choose between worlds, she chose me.

Later,when the house has gone still and the night has wrapped itself around us, she settles closer, warm and trusting, her cheek pressed to my chest like it has always known the way home.

“Tell me,” she whispers. “Tell me again. I love when you say it.”

I smile into her hair, breathing her in. “Diane’s rules?”

She nods, a small movement, but it carries the weight of years. Of love. Of loss.

I don’t rush it. I never do.

I say them softly, like they’re a prayer instead of instructions. They were meant to be passed hand to hand, heart to heart. I’ve carried them with me through every Christmas, every quiet act of kindness, every moment I wondered if what I was building would matter, without even meeting the words.

“Give without being seen,” I begin.

“Never ask why someone needs help.”

“One cart can change everything.”

“And love…,” I pause, my arm tightening around her as her fingers curl into my shirt, anchoring herself to me. “Love works best when it’s shared.”

She exhales, shaky and full, like something inside her has finally been set down. I feel the tremor of it against my skin, the way grief and gratitude live side by side in her.

I hold her tight against me, safe in my embrace, and in that quiet, sacred space between breaths, I know it deep in mybones that this is how legacies begin. They don’t start with grand gestures, but with arms wrapped around someone you love, with words spoken gently, and with choosing kindness again and again.

This is how they last.

This is how they remain.