Angie nodded slowly.
“Even when we're afraid?”
“Especially then.”
I stayed until the evening nurse arrived.
Before leaving, I asked Angie whether she'd eaten.
She hadn't.
I brought her soup and a sandwich from the hospital cafeteria, then reminded her that she could call if she needed help with anything practical.
She smiled tiredly.
“You sound like Tucker's grandfather.”
I froze.
She noticed immediately.
“Oh, Bear, I'm sorry. I didn't mean—”
“No.”
I looked toward Tucker's room.
Then I smiled.
“That's a pretty good job title.”
Angie began crying again.
I put one arm around her shoulders.
Neither of us spoke.
That night, I returned home and sat in Sarah's old bedroom.
The room no longer frightened me quite as much.
I'd begun opening the curtains during the day, allowing sunlight to fall across the faded blanket and the little bookshelf beneath the window.
I still couldn't bring myself to rearrange everything.
But I no longer treated the room as a place I wasn't allowed to enter.
I sat on the edge of her bed and looked toward a small wooden box beneath the desk.
It was painted pale blue.
Sarah had decorated the lid with stickers shaped like stars and butterflies.
I remembered giving it to her for her sixth birthday.
She called it her treasure box.
Inside, she kept things nobody else would have considered valuable.
Bottle caps.
Pretty stones.
A broken bracelet.
A plastic ring from a birthday cake.
And little pieces of paper covered with drawings.
I hadn't opened it since she died.
For several minutes, I stared at the box.
Then I reached down and lifted it onto the bed.
The lid creaked.
Inside were the same familiar treasures.
A purple ribbon.
A tiny plastic horse.
Several colorful buttons.
A folded drawing of a motorcycle.
And an envelope marked in Sarah's uneven handwriting.
For Daddy.
My hands began trembling.
I recognized the envelope.
Sarah had given it to me during one of her last months at home.
She told me I wasn't allowed to open it until I had a really sad day.
After she died, every day felt sad.
But somehow, I couldn't bring myself to read it.
I had placed it in the box and forgotten exactly where.
Now, eight years later, it was resting in my hands.
I turned it over.
The paper was slightly yellowed.
One corner had been folded.
Across the back, Sarah had drawn a little white star.
I closed my eyes.
Then I carefully opened the envelope.
Inside was a single sheet of lined notebook paper.