We left the laundromat together. Outside, the cold air cut through my coat, sharp and bracing. I unlocked my car and hesitated.
“Do you want to come with me?” I asked. “I’m going to visit her.”
The drive to the cemetery was quiet. The dinner sat untouched on the seat between us, the warmth slowly fading. Snow dusted the ground, softening the edges of everything.
When we reached her grave, Eli stepped forward first. He knelt carefully and placed the lilies down, adjusting them so they faced the headstone.
“I wouldn’t be here without you,” he whispered.
I stood behind him, listening, feeling something inside me loosen. When he finished, he stepped back, giving me space.
I knelt and brushed my fingers over the stone. “You should have told me,” I murmured, though I knew she never would have. That wasn’t who she was.
Eli cleared his throat. “There’s one more thing.”
I looked up.
“She asked me to watch out for you. Not in a way that intrudes. Just to be there if you ever needed someone who understands what loss can do to a person.”
“I don’t know what I need yet,” I said honestly.
“That’s okay,” he replied. “Neither did I.”
We drove back to my apartment afterward. I invited him in without thinking too much about it. We ate the food together at my small kitchen table, neither of us talking much. It wasn’t awkward. It was peaceful.
As he stood to leave, he paused by the door. “I won’t disappear,” he said. “But I won’t push either.”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
After he left, I sat alone on the couch, the letter folded neatly in my hands. For the first time since my mother passed, the silence didn’t feel quite as heavy.
I realized then that her legacy wasn’t just the meals she cooked or the traditions she kept. It was the way she believed in people. The way she showed up, year after year, without expecting anything in return.
