What Grief Made of Us
Chapter 29
The smell of burning memory lingered long after Lila left the house.
It clung to her skin, her lungs, the roots of her teeth. She felt it more than she smelled it—an echo of something once alive, now turned to ash. Not just the cradle. Not just the child. But the weight of everything she had buried inside herself.
She walked without direction.
Barefoot.
Alone.
Each step sank a little into the earth, like the ground itself remembered what she had done and wanted to swallow her whole.
⸻
The town had changed.
Not all at once.
But in small, cruel ways.
Windows that once glowed were now dark.
Cars rusted mid-journey.
Dogs barked with no mouths.
And no one—no one—spoke Henry's name.
Not even the ones who loved him.
Not James.
Not their mother.
Not the preacher who had held Henry's broken body and whispered prayers into a chest already still.
The forgetting had already begun to rot the town from the inside out.
And Lila—no longer hiding, no longer running—felt it all.
⸻
She found her mother in the hospital parking lot.
Staring at an empty crib in the back of her car.
"I was going to donate it," her mother whispered, not looking up.
"To who?" Lila asked.
Her voice was tired. Hoarse.
"To whoever still believes children are born clean."
The wind caught the edge of a flyer taped to a nearby pole. It flapped violently. The word MISSING danced across it like a taunt.
It was Henry's face beneath it.
But… wrong.
Outdated.
Too young.
A version of him long gone.
"How long has it been?" Lila asked.
Her mother blinked slowly, like she'd forgotten how to track time. "Since he left? Or since we stopped talking about it?"
Lila didn't know the answer.
Didn't want to.
⸻
She wandered again.
Back to the school.
To the hallway still stained with James' blood.
To the gym where they used to dance under broken disco lights during homecoming.
To the science room where Henry first kissed her.
Where he whispered, "Even if no one remembers, I will."
She thought she could handle remembering.
But she wasn't prepared for the silence that came after.
The way the world just… moved on.
As if grief didn't deserve space.
As if sorrow was just another emotion to push away.
⸻
That night, the wind spoke in a language Lila didn't know.
It howled like it had a throat.
Like it was mourning too.
She curled up on the floor of the burned-out church, where the pews were skeletons and the altar still bled wax.
Olivia didn't appear again.
Not as a spirit.
Not as a shadow.
But Lila still felt her.
In the pause between heartbeats.
In the pull of every memory.
In the ache of not being able to say goodbye.
⸻
Sometime before morning, Lila dreamt of the cradle again.
But this time, it was empty.
No child.
No vines.
Just soft blankets, warm and folded.
And in the dream, she wasn't alone.
Henry sat beside her.
Older.
Tired.
A version of him that never got to exist.
He didn't speak.
He just held her hand.
And they watched the sun rise through a window that no longer existed.
Together.
Silent.
Still alive in the way only memories could be.
⸻
She woke up crying.
Real tears.
The first in days.
Maybe weeks.
And she let them fall.
Not because she was weak.
But because grief—when finally given permission—became something holy.
Something whole.
Something human.
⸻
When she stood again, she looked at the town one last time.
At the ruins.
The ghosts.
The fragments.
She didn't know where she was going.
But she knew she couldn't stay.
Some grief stays like roots.
But some… is meant to be carried.
Not buried.