I want to tell you about Emily.
Not the end of her story, but the middle of it. The part where she was still fighting.
She came to visit me on a Tuesday afternoon in late spring. She wore long sleeves even though the temperature outside was well into the eighties.
“I run cold,” she said, and smiled.
I handed her a cup of tea and watched her hands.
There were moments where I almost said something. Where the question formed in my throat and then dissolved before it reached my lips.
Because Emily would always say the same thing.
“Ethan has been under a lot of pressure at work. It will get better, Mom. Now that the baby is coming, everything will settle down.”
She believed it. Or she wanted me to believe she believed it.
I asked her twice to come stay with me. To leave for just a few weeks, take a breath, let things calm down.
She shook her head both times.
“I’m handling it,” she said. “I have a plan.”
Those words would come back to me later in ways I never expected.
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