Grace was 18. She was emotionally shattered.
I didn't know how to reach her. I barely knew how to breathe myself.
I never adopted her legally.
The weeks after the funeral felt like walking through fog. People brought casseroles and said things like, "She would want you both to be strong."
Grace barely spoke. When she did, her words were sharp, as if she needed them to hurt someone. She was angry and grieving.
I tried to keep things normal. That was my first mistake.
I kept making dinner, asking about school, and saying "we" when I talked about the future.
But I didn't realize that my stepdaughter needed someone to blame for her mother's loss.
That someone became me.
Grace barely spoke.
One evening, a few years later, I opened Jean's closet.
Her clothes had been hanging there untouched since the funeral. The scent of her perfume still clung to the fabric, faint but unmistakable.
I stood there for a long time before doing anything. I told myself Jean would've wanted someone else to have them.
A family from church had recently lost everything in a house fire. So, I boxed up the clothes and dropped them off.
It felt like the right thing to do.
I stood there for a long time before doing anything.
But when Grace came home that night and saw the empty closet, she confronted me quietly in the kitchen. "You gave them away."
"I donated them. Someone needed them," I replied, careful with my tone.
She stared at me, her jaw tight.
"You had no right!"
"Grace, please," I said. "We shouldn't burn bridges over this. Your mom would've approved."
She laughed, but there was no humor in it. "We? There is no 'we,' Vincent. You're not my father. You were just her husband. Just some guy who lived in our house."
"You gave them away."
"I raised you," I whispered in shock.
"Well, she's gone," she shot back, making her way to her bedroom, grabbing her bag, and filling it with clothes. "So you don't matter anymore."
The door slammed. That's the sound that echoed in my head for years afterward.
And that was the last time I saw her.
I tried everything. I called, emailed, and wrote desperate letters. I even drove past old addresses I found online, hoping to see her face in a window.
Eventually, silence became the only thing that answered me back.
And that was the last time I saw her.
Until the previous week, five years after our estrangement.
That morning, I crossed off another square on the calendar and started making coffee. I was halfway through my mug when I heard a truck outside.
I peered through the window and saw a delivery truck in my driveway, but I hadn't ordered anything.
When I opened the door, the driver was already wrestling a massive box onto my porch.
"Careful, pal," he grunted. "This thing weighs a ton. Must be bricks."
I signed for it, confused, and watched him drive away.
...but I hadn't ordered anything.
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