I breathed through the pain.
“I never got to hold her, but she was stubborn. She kicked whenever Sarah tried to sleep—and somehow kicked harder every time I burned dinner.”
Emily laughed through her tears.
“She sounds like us.”
I looked at the two towels, then at my daughters, and finally at the ocean. For the first time in eighteen years, I said all four names aloud.
Sarah.
Ivy.
Emily.
Grace.
Nothing shattered.
Nobody disappeared.
Loving the daughters standing beside me did not reduce the love I still carried for the daughter I had lost.
For eighteen years, I had believed that beach was where my life had broken into two separate pieces. Now I understood that grief and love did not have to erase each other.
My grief could remain.
But this time, my love was coming home with me.
