My Husband Took the Day Off to Cook Easter Dinner – But What I Saw on Our Kitchen Camera Changed Everything

I pulled back just enough to look at her. “Did she love you?”

“Annoyingly perfect.”

Nora’s mouth trembled. “Immediately.”

After a while, I took a bite.

Too much glaze.

I laughed through the tears.

Nora looked nervous. “Too sweet?”

“Perfect,” I said. “Annoyingly perfect.”

“I am still mad at you.”

She smiled for real then, and there it was.

My mother’s laugh.

Not exact. But close enough.

Liam sat down carefully. “I should have told you sooner. Maybe not everything. But more. I was trying so hard to keep a promise that I forgot you were the one carrying the shock.”

Then I nodded once. “I am still mad at you.”

She had my mother’s hands.

“I know.”

“Good.”

Nora let out a weak laugh. “She said you do that. You forgive slowly and thoroughly.”

I pointed at her. “Do not get too comfortable.”

She had my mother’s hands. My mother’s eyes. But also years my mother had never lived with. Different grief. Different memories.

My mom still found a way to leave me one last thing. Her sister.

“Tell me everything,” I said. “Start with the train station. Then the red coat. Then every story she never got to tell me.”

Nora nodded.

And that was how the first Easter without my mother became something else, too.

Not easier. Never that. But fuller. Because somehow, even after she was gone, my mom still found a way to leave me one last thing. Her sister.