I heard that from Carol next door, who followed such things with the interest of someone who had a good memory for other people’s hypocrisy. The family group chat, where people used to send holiday greetings and cat memes, went silent for good. Sometimes David posted something neutral there, about the weather maybe.
No one really responded. That happens. Susan Whitaker called me in November.
Just to check in. No business reason. She asked how we were doing. I told her we had moved, Ethan was settling in, and I was back at work.
She listened. Every so often she said, “Good.” She had that particular calm some people have after seeing enough life to know what matters and what doesn’t.
“Harold was a very intelligent man,” she said at the end of the call. “Yes,” I said. “He understood people very clearly.”
“That’s rare,” she said. “Yes,” I said. There was a pause. Then Susan added:
“He asked about you in every message. How is Kate, how is the boy, is she managing? I told him I didn’t know, because I hadn’t met you yet. And he wrote back, ‘She is managing. She knows how.’”
I was quiet for a second. “Thank you,” I said. “And thank you for honoring his trust.”
We said goodbye. I set the phone down on the table. Sat for a while in the quiet room.
She is managing. She knows how. Yes. I do. In December I took the photo album out of the box of old things.
The same one I had made for him in the fifth year. Green cover, letters on the title page, more than fifty pictures. I turned the pages slowly.
There he was by the window, reaching with his left hand for a glass. Doing it himself, without my help. That was the third month of our hard work.
There was Ethan sleeping on his lap without a care in the world. There they were looking out the window together. I had taken that one from behind: two silhouettes, one large and one small.
And finally the last page. The picture Ethan had taken. Crooked horizon.
Harold and I standing by the window. I’m saying something to him, and he’s looking at me. His face so open.
I closed the album. Put it back on the shelf. This time in plain sight, right between the books.
Let it stay there. That winter was a snowy one. A real winter, with drifts halfway up the windows and that dry squeak under your boots.
Ethan was in his last year before elementary school. He wore a red puffer coat we had picked out together. And every day he came home with the expression of someone who had had an excellent time.
Sometimes he asked about Grandpa. “Mom, can Grandpa see us?” he asked once. “I don’t know,” I said honestly.
“But does he know we’re okay now?” he asked. “I think he does,” I said. “Okay then,” Ethan said, and went back to whatever six-year-old business he had.
I loved that about him. His ability to accept what couldn’t be known without demanding an answer that didn’t exist.
To take what there was and keep going. I don’t know where a six-year-old gets that. Maybe a little from me. Maybe a little from Harold.
Right before New Year’s, I made soup. The same chicken soup with real homemade noodles. Harold had loved it more than anything.
I remembered the way he ate it on his good days. Slowly. Carefully. With the serious expression of a man doing something worth doing right.
Ethan hovered nearby. Helped cut the noodles I’d rolled out on the table. He cut them unevenly, but with enormous concentration…
