Page 46

46

EMMETT

T he first thing I hear is the scream, followed by the sobs.

Heidi and I wake from a dead sleep, and only take a second to look at each other before we’re flying out of our bed and running down the hall toward the kitchen.

Juniper sits on the floor by the door, a towel in her hand as a small bird lays on top of it. She wrapped it up in an attempt to warm it.

“What’s wrong?” Heidi asks, kneeling down in front of her.

“She died,” Juniper screams, tears flowing down her face hard.

Heidi folds back the fabric, taking a closer look, and when I hear her sigh, I know that Juniper is right. My heart sinks.

It’s hard to see anything this way.

Heidi looks up at me, her eyes sad, before she looks back at the bird. She puts her hands out for permission, and Juniper places the towel in her hands.

She gets up, tears in her eyes as she grabs a small box from the closet.

I sit on the floor with my daughter as we watch Heidi bundle the bird up carefully, placing it in the box. Juniper curls into me, her cries shaking her small body.

I rock her back and forth, kissing the top of her head.

When Heidi comes back, she places the box in front of us. “This afternoon we’re going to give her a proper burial, okay, Juniper?”

She nods through her tears.

We spend the rest of the day with her on the couch, watching movies to take her mind off what happened this morning. We don’t ask how she found it, and we don’t need to.

But by noon she stretches, her eyes puffy as she looks around. “Why do things have to die?” she asks quietly, and both Heidi and I sit up, unprepared for the question.

Heidi is the first one to talk. “Sometimes their bodies stop working,” she says, sadness dripping off ever word. Her eyes brim with tears as she looks up at me. “And there’s nothing we can do to stop it.”

Our therapist said that for her age, the best thing we can do whenever this topic comes up is to be honest with her. Especially if she’s trying desperately to save everything she can, she needs to understand why something may happen. Using euphemisms or lying to her is only going to make her more curious and confused.

“But why do their bodies stop working?” Juniper asks, her head on my chest.

Heidi bites her lip. “There are a lot of reasons. And none of them are fair. ”

Juni looks up at me, her head bent back in a way that’s frankly a little terrifying, her blue eyes glassy. “Why did mom have to go?”

The question is one I knew was coming eventually, but I was wholly unprepared to hear it today.

I look at Heidi as she starts crying, her shoulders shaking, and I’m trying my hardest to hold it together. “Mom’s body got sick, and we didn’t catch it on time,” I tell her honestly. The one thing I won’t tell her about is how it got sick. She can go her whole life without knowing that it was after she was born.

I’ve never once blamed Juniper for her leaving this earth and I vowed to never let Juniper ever think she was to blame.

“Why did it get sick?” she presses, and I look to Heidi for assistance.

She sighs, wiping away her tears.

“You know, I lost my dad when I was little,” she tells her, taking my daughter’s hands in hers.

Juniper gasps. “You did?”

She nods. “I was older than you are, but his body got very sick. I didn’t know about it for a long time.”

“Why?”

She shrugs. “He didn’t want to tell me. He wanted every second he had with me to be a good one.”

“Were you sad?” Juniper asks suddenly, gripping Heidi’s hands.

Heidi nods. “I was very sad. He was my favorite person in the world.”

“I never met mom.”

Heidi looks at me, and my heart melts.

There comes a time when you have a decision to make. Sink or swim. Choose to leave your soul in the past and grow old as a shell of yourself, withering away without anyone truly knowing you, or you let someone in and allow them to change how you see the world. I’ve always thought the first option would be less painful.

But as the hours tick by, Juniper curled up between Heidi and I as we talk to her about the wonderful memories we had with the people we lost in our lives, it becomes clear that I’ve just been waiting for the day Heidi was ready to be in my life, too.

I fought it for too long, but there was never any world where I would live out my life without her in it.

“Dad?” Juniper yawns.

“Yeah, Bug?”

She looks at me quizzically.

“Why do you call me Bug?”

I smile.

“Your mom loved butterflies. Blue butterflies, specifically. They were her absolute favorite. You don’t see them often, so every time she did she would get so happy,” I smile at the memory. “But I would always tease her about it. I’d joke that they were just bugs.”

Technically, I was right. But they are beautiful, and I love them just as much as she does now.

“Your mom brought you home in a blanket that was covered in blue butterflies, and I told her that if she wasn’t careful, you would turn into a bug.” Heidi smiles through her tears, realization dawning on her perfect face, her mind going back to that night. “So, I’ve called you Bug ever since.”

I watch as her fingers find her necklace, her rubbing it between them, and I reach for mine, tucked away under my shirt.

“Did she love anything else?” Juniper asks.

“She loved sunsets.”

“Do you think of her a lot?”

“Yes, I do.”

Heidi rests her head against my shoulder as we look out the window.

We settle into a comfortable silence when Juniper asks, “Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think we could watch the sunset tonight?”

“I do, Bug. I do.”

Pulling her into me, I place a kiss on Heidi’s forehead.

“I have one last question,” she promises, holding her finger up. I nod in encouragement. “Sundays the super bowl, but can you have cake with us?”

Heidi and I grin at the same time. She’s continued to make cake on Sundays, but most of the time I’m not here to see it.

“I think we can arrange that,” I promise as I look at Heidi.

She nods. “I’ll make some for you to bring to the hotel and we can FaceTime each other,” she assures.

We’ll be jumping on a plane tomorrow, on our way down south for the big game. Although I’m staying separately from my family at first, we’ll all be in the same room after. I bought them a room in the same hotel as we’re staying in.

That evening, we bundle up in our winter clothes, grabbing some blankets as we go, and head outside to the back porch, where we lay a couple blankets down.

The three of us lay there under the setting sun, talking more about Heidi’s dad and love stories.

Chapters of life.

Eras that we enter.

A new chapter in life doesn’t mean that the old one was bad, or that it’ll be forgotten at all. It just means that you’re opening yourself up to the continuation of a story that you don’t want to end.

And as the sky turns pink, and I look over at my girls and their cold, red noses, the sunset reflecting in their eyes, I know that I never want this chapter to end, and one day when Juniper gets older and moves on to start her own life, a new chapter will start.

And I know Heidi will be right there with me, as she’ll always be.