Below you will find a story written for an English course for my Creative Writing Minor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. This was written for an open prompt, and I've incorporated parts of stories my grandmother has shared with me about her childhood, where she grew up living above a grocery store. This is a long one. Grab a coffee, and perhaps a tissue.
I listened to the birds chirp, the wind blow, the cash register ring. I watched the sun beam in through gaps between tree branches, the water drip from our leaking sink, the two lines slowly appear on the pregnancy test. Pregnant. An accident. I tied my long black hair into a ponytail and sat on the toilet, covering my face with my dry and cracking hands. I listened to Raymond yell at Abigail and Steven. Abigail didn’t go to the bank and did not have change for a customer. She’d forgotten – an accident. Steven had not mopped up the aisles as Raymond had asked him to this morning. He was going to do it, but just not quite yet – an accident. Then I heard Alayna come in. I felt relieved.
“It’s okay, Dad, I have some cash. Steven, I’ll mop the aisles while you go to the bank to get more.”
I heard the door ring as Steven left for the bank. I walked to the front door, leaving the test on the cracked bathroom sink. I watched Steven through the window as he mounted his rusting bicycle in a frantic hurry to go to the bank. Abigail manned the register, Alayna mopped the aisles, and Raymond watched over with his belt unclasped – he had already begun to take it off when he saw that Steven hadn’t cleaned the aisles. He was like this. Always angry, always looking for things to make him angrier. He stepped outside for a cigarette, and I waited for him to finish. While he smoked, I held my breath.
I watched him as he sat on the bench outside of our Home Mart. His shirt was darkening with sweat. His dark hair was messy as he took his old baseball hat off to run his hand through his hair before putting the hat back on, his calloused hands then roughly handling his delicate cigarettes.
The doorbell rang after he came back in. I turned around. “Babe, would you come with me for a second?”
“What for, I have to make sure Abigail doesn’t fuck up at the register.” He smelled of cigarettes.
“Oh no, it’s fine, I’ll stay here with her. She’s doing alright,” said Alayna. I thanked Alayna with my big brown eyes as I led Raymond to the bathroom. Alayna was a senior in high school. Not valedictorian of her class, but close enough. She was going to Boston College next fall on a full ride. I was going to miss her. Our Home Mart is in Greenville, North Carolina. It’s going to be really hard to see her.
I stepped into the bathroom, Raymond at my heels. I said nothing. I picked up the test, checking the results once more before turning around to hand it to Raymond. Two pink lines. Pregnant. An accident. I turned around, avoiding his eyes, and handed him the test.
I studied his feet while he studied the test. He did not move. Not even an inch.
I saw the test fall into the trash beside his feet.
“Adelaide,” I heard him say. I did not look up. I stared at his belt, clasped now, worried he would soon reach for it. “Adelaide, look at me.” I met his brown eyes and said nothing. “Adelaide, what does this mean. How can we do this again. How did this happen.”
I did not break our stare as I took a deep breath. “Raymond, if we can do this three times, we can do it a fourth. We have no other option. It was an accident.” And that was it. I watched him as I listened to my heart beat. He did not flinch, when I thought he would fight. He took a deep breath as I held my own.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay.”
For the next nine months, everyone went about their day as normal, including myself. We tried to ignore the fact that we could not comfortably afford another family member. Alayna continued to study hard at school, and still managed to make time to help Steven and Abigail with their homework. Our regular customers expressed their excitement for our family but with worried eyes, knowing as well as we did that this was not going to be easy.
I felt dizzy as I watched the fluorescent hospital lights flicker above me. I’ve gone through labor three times, but it doesn’t get easier. Raymond held my hand as he always did, not saying anything with his words but everything with his eyes. He’s a drunk, he’s abusive, and he has anger problems. But he loves me. Through his words and his actions, I hear and feel all of his evil and aggression, but through his eyes I see that he loves me. The same way I knew my own father loved me, after all of his drunk beatings and aggression, he would look at me like he loved me. He would look at me like he was sorry. My father died after driving drunk, and took my mother with him. An accident. I survived because I was in the back seat, and the only one wearing a seatbelt. That was twenty years ago. I am thirty-eight. It feels, sometimes, as though my survival was an accident.
After eight hours of labor, I gave birth to Caroleena May. She had blue eyes. All babies’ eyes start out blue, but I knew hers would stay. Raymond and I both have brown eyes, and so do Abigail and Steven. Alayna was my only blue-eyed child until Caroleena had them, too. My first and last born, both with blue eyes.
Sometimes I sit and wonder if the world looks different for people with blue eyes. My father had brown eyes. My mother’s were blue, and I was always jealous of her blue eyes. Sometimes I was even mad at her for not giving them to me. My father burdened me with his brown eyes. I wonder if people with blue eyes see the world in a more positive light. Do they see the brighter side of situations? Do they see the good in the bad? I have brown eyes, and I always look for the bad in the good. I do not believe things are good because, for me, things have never been good. I do not believe life is fair, and I do not see the positive light that Alayna seems to see, and that my mother seemed to see. My mother would turn a bad situation good and make a good situation better. Alayna does this, too. She’s the reason I’m still sane, the reason I get out of bed in the morning, because I know she will bring a positive light to my day. Alayna, with her blue eyes.
Two days later Raymond and I brought Caroleena home on the first of December, during the first snow storm of winter. I always loved when it would snow on the first of December, because it reminded me of my mom. She used to sing Sweet Baby James by James Taylor – my lullaby. This is the song I sang to Caroleena as we pulled into our make-shift driveaway beside our Home Mart, singing over and over, “now the first of December was covered with snow.”
Alayna was washing the dishes from the dinner she had made for herself, and for Abigail and Steven. She stopped and turned to face us, her beautiful eyes tearing up after seeing Caroleena. Caroleena was wrapped in Alayna’s old baby blanket – we don’t throw things away. Steven and Abigail ran to greet us from their room, where they share fairy tales and happy stories they learn from the other kids at Hope Elementary school. I held my baby girl and Raymond held my shoulders, looking over at her perfect sleeping face.
“Can I hold her?” Abigail whispered, standing between Alayna and Steven.
“Of course you can baby, let’s go into the living room where we can sit down.”
My family followed me into the living room, which was also our kitchen, to seat ourselves on the one couch that fit into the space. Raymond sat in his usual wooden chair at the kitchen table, and Alayna stood, watching over like the guardian angel that she is. I put Caroleena May into Abigail’s arms. She gazed into her younger sister’s face as Caroleena’s eyes slowly opened.
“She has blue eyes,” Abigail whispered as she looked at Alayna. Alayna teared up as she looked at me, full of joy.
“Really?” Alayna whispered back as she knelt down to look. Caroleena looked up at Alayna, silent as can be, and their blue eyes met. Caroleena waved her arms in the air and rested her small hand on Alayna’s cheek.
I began to cry. My family looked at me, and I cried harder. I had not felt this happy in a long time, I had not felt this safe or this secure in life for too many years to count. Raymond looked at me, and for the first time, I saw him tear up. His brown eyes didn’t allow a single tear fall, but they were there, I saw it. Things were changing. I finally felt as if I was looking at the world in a positive light. My eyes felt blue.
The next two years were difficult, especially with Alayna being gone for college most of the time, but no one seemed to mind. Raymond and I share a room, Abigail and Steven share a room, and Alayna shares a room with Caroleena when she’s home. We have one bathroom, downstairs. We share our bathroom with the customers. It’s never been a problem for anyone to share the bathroom with the public, except for when the drunk homeless wander in and start showering. Raymond was detained for a month after beating a drunk old man and throwing him out on the street, naked and terrified. Customers think it’s as clean as if it were in a home, because, it is.
But that seemed to be the old Raymond. He still smoked, but less, because he did not want Caroleena to smell cigarettes. He still drank, but during the night instead of all day long, because he did not want to be drunk when he was with Caroleena. He still got angry, but on rare occasions and resorted to yelling rather than beating. His belt did not scare us anymore. Caroleena made everyone happier, made everyone want to better themselves for the sake of her. Caroleena saved our family.
I looked for snow on December first, my favorite day, and it came. Alayna, now a sophomore, was home for winter break. She took her exams before any of her classmates because she planned ahead, and she’s mastered the material as fast as they could teach it. Most colleges would not allow this, but Alayna is charming, and smart. She had the professors on her side, and they understood our family hardships. I was happy she had come home early. I felt the same feeling of security I felt when I brought Caroleena home on exactly this day two years ago.
Every night, Raymond does the closing work. He puts his pistol under the cash register, with fresh bullets that he makes himself, insisting that they are better than store-bought ammunition. I’ve always hated guns, but living in a Home Mart, especially on this side of town, meant a lot of robberies. Raymond has always been proud of his skills in building things. He wanted to own his own auto shop, but his dreams were put on pause and later forgotten after we became pregnant with Alayna. But he makes up for his lost dream by repairing things around the shop. He was re-building the cabinets in our kitchen when Alayna came home and insisted that soon they’d be finished and better than ever. Until then, the kitchen table served as our storage space and was hidden in the clutter of dishes and dry foods.
We closed down for the night and Raymond was working on cleaning his pistol when the rest of us went to sleep. I heard Raymond loading his bullets at the kitchen table and later heard his footsteps as he went outside for a cigarette. Not long after, the door rang and I heard him lock it. He then joined me in bed. The pistol was forgotten on the kitchen table among the clutter.
Alayna was the first one up because she shares a room with Caroleena, who wakes up before dawn every day. I heard Alayna making a bottle and grinding coffee beans. I looked out the window. It was the first of December, and it was snowing.
I could hear Alayna talking to Caroleena. I heard the bottle fall and heard Caroleena laugh. I heard the bottle fall again. Smiling, I got out of bed knowing Caroleena was playing her favorite game of throw the bottle. I wrapped a robe around my waist as I went to join them in the kitchen.
I saw Alayna reaching down to pick up the bottle. I smiled as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and opened them to see Caroleena reaching for the pistol Raymond had forgotten among the clutter the night before. Alayna sat back up in her chair, cleaning off the bottle.
I screamed.
The gun went off.
Caroleena cried.
Alayna fell.
All in a second. All so fast. I ran to Alayna. Raymond was in the kitchen in a heartbeat, as were Abigail and Steven. Abigail screamed. Steven screamed. Caroleena cried. Raymond was by my side, helping me hold Alayna. Her eyes were wide open, blue, crying. She was trying to speak but could not. Her mouth was filling with blood.
“CALL 911!” I screamed to Abigail. She stumbled as she ran to the phone, dialing with the speed of light, panting. Then, I heard nothing. I did not hear what Raymond was saying to me. I did not hear Caroleena continue to cry, or Abigail and Steven continue to scream. I did not hear the sirens of the ambulance and police pull up to our Home Mart. I did not hear the paramedics rush in, followed by the police, putting Alayna on a stretcher and then into the ambulance. All I could hear was my mother’s voice, singing Sweet Baby James as I stared into Alayna’s blue eyes, crying with her, holding her.
Raymond and I could not leave the kids alone, because Alayna was not there to watch over them. We all go into our old brown minivan. It used to be a light blue color, but it had changed with the years of not being washed. We followed the ambulance.
We got to the hospital and parked right behind the ambulance.
“Sir. Sir? You can’t park here.”
Raymond looked the security guard right in the eye, and said, “yes, I can.”
We as a family ran after Alayna being pushed into the hospital on a blood-stained stretcher. I held Caroleena tight to my chest, the both of us still crying. We followed the doctors and the stretcher as far as we could until two big white doors closed in front of us. Raymond pushed through but a doctor held him back, saying family was not allowed in this wing of the hospital, and we had to go sit in the waiting room. Raymond punched the doctor. I heard the crack of his nose breaking, and saw Raymond again try to run through the doors. Calls were made, more people came, and police arrived. They pushed Raymond to the ground and handcuffed him. The ambulance driver was among those who rushed to help and told the police that it was his daughter who had just been rushed in on a stretcher. The doctor looked at me. He waved off the police, and said “let it go for now.”
We sat in the waiting room. Caroleena in my lap, crying. I cried. Steven cried. Abigail cried. Raymond paced with his hands still cuffed behind his back, cursing. The police made him wear the cuffs. They know Raymond and his anger problems from years of assault charges. It was the first of December, and it was snowing.
I sat in my robe. Steven sat in his blue flannel pajamas, holding Abigail’s hand as she sat in her matching pink flannel pajamas. Each one of us still had hair messy from sleep and running through the hospital. Our eyes red from crying, our faces white from fear.
What felt like hours went by. We remained exactly as we were. Then, after Raymond finally took a break from his pacing to sit down, a doctor came in. Immediately Raymond was on his feet. We stood up. Even Caroleena fell silent.
But I could not hear anything. I could not hear as the doctor explained to us that they had tried everything they could do. That there was no chance of saving her. It was too late from the start. I could not hear, but through the window, I saw that it was snowing. I thought to myself, “now the first of December was covered in snow.”
Steven and Abigail were crying uncontrollably, holding each other for dear life. Raymond had fallen to his knees, hands still cuffed behind him, head bowed low, tears slowly hitting the carpet in front of him. The officer who had been standing silently in the room uncuffed him then withdrew to the doorway, leaving our family to crumble. I held Caroleena, who had fallen asleep, bright blue eyes closed from the nightmare that was this day. I stood still, tears slowly falling from my face, burning my big brown eyes. I could see no positive light in this blindly fluorescent waiting room. I closed my eyes. I pictured Alayna just the night before, being in my position, holding Caroleena May, the girl that saved our family. The girl that unknowingly destroyed our family. My last-born daughter. An accident.
Casseroles and condolences from our regular customers did not stop old Raymond from returning. He started back up with his daily binge drinking, his anger came back stronger than ever, his violence stronger than ever. I could see that he blamed himself for leaving the gun on the table, for Alayna’s death, for our family’s destruction, but he would never admit to it. Raymond does not apologize. He does not admit to wrongdoing. He took the anger he felt towards himself out on us. We once again wore bruises on our backs and arms from his belt. No one was happy, except for Caroleena. Her innocence infuriated Raymond, and confused Steven and Abigail, who were both only in middle school at the time. I had little to say to anyone. I took the beatings, sent Abigail and Steven to school every morning, and mothered Caroleena. I saw no positive light.
I no longer spoke to anyone on the first of December. It’s my most hated day of the year.
Alayna and Caroleena’s room was now Caroleena’s room. Five years have passed, and she was seven years old. I knew she deserved to know. I knew we could not keep this secret from her, we could not hide a sister from our daughter. She had just finished second grade, and it was the summer before she began third grade at Hope Elementary school. The same teachers that taught Abigail and Steven taught Caroleena, and I told them our decision on when and how to tell her about Alayna. Holding this secret for too long would be unfair for her but telling her too soon would be confusing.
We would tell her about Alayna, show her a picture, and say it was an accident.
It was a Sunday morning, and Raymond took Steven and Abigail to help him load the old minivan with milk cartons for the Home Mart. I sat on the couch. We did not keep chairs at the kitchen table anymore. We did not use the kitchen table anymore.
“Caroleena, come in here for a second. I want to talk to you.”
“But mama, I have to finish my book, I want to win the winter reading contest.”
I smiled. Caroleena was Alayna. She was smart, responsible, and charming. “Thats okay, baby, you can finish it in a second. Come here, I want to show you something.”
Caroleena skipped into the living room and took a seat beside me, staring at the box I had beside me. She’s happy for a young girl living in an unhappy home.
“Caroleena, I want to show you something.”
I combed her long dark hair with my fingers and hushed her. “This is the Alayna box. Alayna used to live here too, in your room. You used to have an older sister, baby, but you never got to know her.” I watched her face carefully, all the while combing her hair. “When you were two years old there was an accident, and Alayna passed away. She died.”
I combed her long dark hair with my fingers and hushed her. “This is the Alayna box. Alayna used to live here too, in your room. You used to have an older sister, baby, but you never got to know her.” I watched her face carefully, all the while combing her hair. “When you were two years old there was an accident, and Alayna passed away. She died.”
Caroleena’s beautiful blue eyes widened, tearing up. She opened her mouth but closed it, not knowing what to say. I opened the box. “This is what Alayna used to look like – like you. You’re just like her, Caroleena. She was smart too. She had blue eyes too, you see?”
Caroleena held the picture with both hands, staring at Alayna sitting on her bed, in her room, with her guitar. She looked back at me and then back at the picture, at a loss of words. The door rang downstairs and I could hear Raymond coming home with Abigail and Steven, loading milk cartons in the refrigerated section. Soon they came upstairs and saw the two of us sitting on the couch, Caroleena holding the picture of Alayna.
I had told them before they left that today was the day, today the secret dies, except for the fact that it was Caroleena who pulled the trigger. It was an accident, and nothing more. That is what Caroleena will carry with her.
Abigail and Steven sat on either side of Caroleena as I walked to Raymond’s side, reaching to hold his hand. He held an already opened whiskey bottle in the other. He pulled away from me, shoving me aside as he took the bottle with him downstairs. Abigail and Steven were telling Caroleena stories of Alayna, sharing what they remember of her, explaining that they, too, were young at the time of the accident. I felt a weird feeling of relief. I was relieved, but sad to be relieved.
Years passed, and it was the first of December. Caroleena was fourteen years old.
When Alayna died, I think she took the snow with her, because since her death it never has snowed on the first of December. But this year, it snowed. I cried and I drank. I drank until I could not feel my feet. I drank until I could not feel the cold from the snow outside. I kept telling myself that if I drank a little more, I would not be able to feel the pain.
I sat on that one damned couch in our living room. It was almost time for dinner, but that meant nothing to us, because we did not sit at the table anymore. There were no chairs. Dinner for us was finding a microwavable meal from the cold aisle downstairs and eating it in your room alone. I was about to go find my own meal, when I heard Caroleena singing in her room and playing her guitar.
She was playing Sweet Baby James.
I started to cry. I opened her door and stumbed inside, grabbing the door frame to balance my drunk self. She looked up, startled, and asked what was wrong. She apologized as fast as Raymond takes off his belt. She knows this is a day to not bother me, to let me grieve alone.
“Do not, ever, ever, in your entire life, and under this roof, and on this day, play that song, ever, ever again.” I dropped the whiskey bottle on the floor, then sat beside it.
Caroleena stared at me, blue eyes wide. “Mama?”
“Don’t cry,” I said. “Please, baby, just don’t. This is my day to cry. Not yours.”
Caroleena put down her guitar and held her breath before asking me what I had hoped she would never ask me. “Mama, what happened to Alayna?”
I stared at her as I held either side of the door frame to keep from spinning. I said nothing. I pulled myself up and got the Alayna box. Her graduation cap and gown, her one and only prom picture, her Boston College acceptance letter, her report cards. Her birth certificate, and Raymond’s pistol. The police returned the pistol when their investigation ended. I kept it hidden under my bed until two years ago. Raymond found it one night, and in a rage demanded that it be thrown out. He never touches the box, so from then on I kept it there. It grew dusty. It rusted over and was surely broken after all of these years.
I carried the box from my room and stood in the doorway of Caroleena’s room. Steven and Abigail were standing outside of their door after hearing me cry. They said nothing, watching as I sat the box down on the ground just inside the room and stared at Caroleena. I could not enter the room. I could not step past the door frame. Raymond was downstairs closing the Home Mart for the night.
“This is the Alayna box. Do you remember this?” I asked quietly.
“Yes,” she whispered, terrified.
“Then you remember she had bright blue eyes, like you. You remember she played that guitar on that very bed, like you. That song you just played was her lullaby.” Caroleena’s tears flowed as she listened. “You remember there was an accident. It was not your fault, baby. Raymond forgot his pistol on the kitchen table the night before. When you were two, on the morning of the first of December, you picked up his gun. It went off. The bullet hit Alayna, and she died.” I opened the box and resting on top of the cap and gown, the birth certificate, and the pictures, was Raymond’s old and decaying pistol. His homemade bullets did not serve as healthy for it in the long run.
Caroleena’s eyes were so huge, so blue. “I shot her,” she whispered.
Her guitar was resting on her lap, her arms limply lying across the strings. Her pale skin looked paler as the color drained from her beautiful face. Abigail began to cry, and I could hear Steven whisper “it’s alright, let them talk” from behind me. I heard their door close, and Abigail’s cries got louder. I picked up the bottle from the floor. It felt like the room was spinning.
“You were two. It was not your fault. I love you so, so much. It was an accident,
baby.” No amount of liquor could have numbed this feeling, but I tried anyways. I felt sick.
I left her room, closing the door on her. Closing the door on Alayna. I sat on the couch and cried. I stared through a teary blur at the empty bottle in my hands. I closed my eyes and pictured Alayna. I tried to see with her blue eyes. I tried to find a positive light.
I heard the echo of Caroleena’s guitar strings cry as she put it in its stand.
I heard silence.
I needed to hug her.
I needed to hold her.
I stood, dizzy, and walked in a crooked line to her room.
I heard a gun go off.
My crooked line turned straight as I raced to her door. The gun was resting in her hand, her white dress turning a crimson red. She had shot her stomach, and laid gasping for air as the blood spread, looking almost like a red rose blossoming on her stomach, growing towards her arms and legs as the blood flowed. Not again. Dear God, not again.
I held Caroleena in my arms. Raymond, Steven, and Abigail were in the room seconds later after hearing the gun go off. Again, Abigail called 911. Again, we cried. Raymond was pale faced, shaking so violently that I thought he was in his own world, experiencing an earthquake only he could feel.
Again, we piled into the minivan to follow the ambulance to the same hospital. They told us we could not park behind the ambulance in the unloading area, but we did anyway. We ran behind the blood-stained stretcher until the white doors closed in front of us. Raymond again tried to push through, but the doctors would not let him.
We sat in the waiting room, fluorescent lights blinding, Raymond pacing, the rest of us crying.
“How the fuck did that pistol end up in our home,” Raymond repeated to himself, asking the floor for answers as he paced with his head bowed.
“WHY was it in the house, how the hell did it still have ammunition, how the hell did those bullets hold up for so long, how . . . “
Besides his rambling, we waited in silence. The fluorescent lights buzzed above us, the same clock that had been there for years counted the seconds out loud, mocking our waiting. Each second that went by I could feel my heart beat faster, faster, faster. The waiting was exhausting.
Years went by before the waiting room door finally opened. The same doctor that had told us Alayna was gone, that said there was nothing he could do, stepped inside. I had hoped that I would never see his face again. He had told me that my first-born child was gone. I hated this man for my loss.
We were on our feet, looking at the doctor with eyes wide, searching for any sign of hope. He gave a soft smile. He gave an inch, and we took a mile.
“Is she okay? Will she be okay? Can we see her?” Raymond asked the questions we were all wondering. He was being a father.
“I’ve never seen anything like her,” the doctor said, smiling a little wider. “She’s a fighter, that one. She’s going to be fine. She’s tired, and needs rest, but she’s awake.”
My world stopped. The clock stopped. The fluorescent lights sounded like they were humming now instead of buzzing. This time, it was me to fall on my knees. I cried until I had no more tears left to give this damned carpet in this damned waiting room. Steven and Abigail were thanking the doctor, holding me and crying with relief. Raymond shook hands with him, hugging him fiercely.
Raymond helped me to my feet as he spoke with the doctor. “Can we see her? Please?” I looked at the doctor, silently begging.
“She’s a little drowsy, but yes, just take it easy on her. Follow me.”
He led us to those white doors that had broken my family. We walked through them. We walked down the hallway, and I wanted each door we passed to be hers. Finally, we reached her room.
I walked in first, followed by Raymond, Steven and Abigail. Caroleena blinked as she saw us. We surrounded her bed, and she looked at each of our faces. She began to tear up, trying hard to keep herself from crying.
“I – I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to. I’m so sorry, for everything, for Alayna, for this, I’m so sorry, I -”
“Stop.” We all looked at Raymond. I held my breath, and Abigail reached for Caroleena’s hand.
“Never, ever, apologize again. You have nothing to be sorry for. I do. I’m sorry.” Raymond stood at the foot of her bed. He reached out to hold her feet with his still shaking hands. Tears filled his eyes, and he let them fall. “Caroleena, you have never done wrong in your life. You didn’t kill Alayna, I did. I left my pistol out. It was my mistake, not yours, and don’t you ever confuse my mistake for your own. That’s not your weight to carry.” I stared. I watched him apologize for the first time.
He let go of her feet and I stepped back as he walked to her side, taking her free hand in his and making sure to be gentle with the IV line. Caroleena’s face crumbled, cheeks soaked from tears, her blue eyes staring up at her father. Her loving father. Was he new again?
“Caroleena, I love you so much. So, so, so much.” He looked around the room at the rest of us and pulled me closer to him. “I love you all, and I never show it.” He broke down.
Caroleena looked at her father and met his gaze. Her beautiful blue eyes, forever finding the positive light, forever finding the good in the bad.
“I know, dad.” She said, smiling at the rest of our crying faces before returning to his.
“I love you, too.”
My eyes felt blue.