“So ghosts know they’re allowed to leave.”
I covered my mouth.
Laura looked out the window.
Caroline knelt slowly in front of Ellie.
“There are no ghosts in this room anymore.”
Ellie touched her face.
“Are you sure?”
Caroline nodded.
“Yes. Just us.”
So we painted it yellow.
Not contractors.
Not decorators.
Us.
Caroline sitting in a chair with a small roller.
Ellie streaking paint too thick along the baseboards.
Me doing the high corners.
Laura taping edges with military precision she claimed was “not emotional investment.”
By evening, the blue room was gone.
In its place was sunlight.
We did not sleep there that night.
We slept downstairs in the living room, all three of us on a mattress in front of the fireplace, because Ellie wanted “everyone where I can count them.”
I woke at 3:00 a.m. to Caroline crying silently beside me.
I reached for her.
She whispered, “I missed her first lost tooth.”
I closed my eyes.
“I know.”
“I missed her first day of kindergarten.”
“I know.”
“I missed you turning forty.”
I almost laughed.
“That one was uneventful.”
She cried harder.
“I missed being alive.”
There was no comfort big enough.
So I held her.
And told the truth.
“You’re here now.”
“I don’t know how to be here.”
“Then we learn.”
She pressed her face into my chest.
“I don’t want you to feel trapped by me.”
I pulled back enough to look at her.
“Caroline.”
Her eyes searched mine.
“You were stolen from me. You were not returned as an obligation.”
She broke then.
Quietly.
Completely.
And for once, Ellie slept through it.
That was progress.
The healing was not cinematic.
It was appointments.
Therapy.
Nightmares.
Insurance forms.
Media avoidance.
Legal corrections.
