“Honey, I’ll stay, irrespective of those paternity test results. I wouldn’t blame you or Claire for any of it.”
That was the beginning of everything.
Over the next few months, I helped her find a small apartment. It wasn’t anything extravagant, but it was clean, quiet, and safe. We picked out curtains together at a discount store and debated toaster ovens in a way that felt almost like bonding.
I met a few of her friends — sharp, funny women with hard stories and kind eyes.
“I don’t need saving.
I just want to stop looking over my shoulder,”
she’d said once.
I told her that she deserved to live without fear, and I meant it.
Eventually, she agreed to meet Pete and Sandra.
It was awkward at first. I mean, of course it was.
But Sandra hugged her first, without hesitation. Pete, ever the overthinker, asked too many questions, but his heart was in the right place.
Lila answered what she wanted,
sidestepped what she didn’t.
And when Pete made a joke about their matching chin dimples, she actually laughed. It wasn’t a polite laugh; it was a real one.
One evening, watching the three of them sit on my back porch with mismatched cups of hot chocolate, I felt something shift.
The grief didn’t vanish,
but it made space.
Claire was everywhere.
In Lila’s stubborn streak, in Sandra’s laugh, and in Pete’s quiet intensity. She was gone, yes. But in some strange way, she had stitched us all together.
