No flowers for the dead - Chapter 36: Chapter 36
You are reading No flowers for the dead, Chapter 36: Chapter 36. Read more chapters of No flowers for the dead.
It had been weeks since they’d last spoken properly.
Not because they were angry.
But because grief is not always shared at the same speed.
Elara wrote.
Alina built.
Each pouring themselves into what they could control when so much else had slipped beyond reach.
But on a quiet Sunday, Elara returned to the house.
She didn’t tell Alina she was coming.
She just… showed up.
And when Alina opened the front door and saw her daughter standing there with her worn leather satchel and wind-kissed hair, something in her chest broke open—wide, warm, and unfinished.
“Elara,” she said softly.
And then Elara was in her arms.
⸻
They sat on the back steps with mugs of tea, watching the light shift through the trees above Elias’s grave.
Neither said his name for a long time.
They didn’t have to.
“I read your latest piece,” Alina said eventually. “About the old blue sweater he used to wear.”
Elara laughed, a little wetly. “He wore it even in summer.”
“He said it made him feel like himself,” Alina replied. “I never asked what that meant.”
“I think you were what made him feel like himself,” Elara said.
The quiet that followed wasn’t heavy.
It was full.
Full of truth.
Of memory.
Of forgiveness, for all the things they couldn’t change.
⸻
Alina reached into her cardigan and pulled out a folded envelope.
“I wasn’t sure when to give you this.”
Elara took it with careful fingers.
Inside was a photograph—one neither of them had ever seen.
Elias and Elara at the piano when she was five.
His hand guiding hers over the keys.
Both of them mid-laugh.
“Where did you find this?” Elara whispered.
“In the back of his closet,” Alina said. “Labeled ‘The Beginning of Everything.’”
Elara pressed the photo to her chest.
And in that moment, she understood:
Some legacies are written in ink.
Others are lived, quietly, in the spaces between a laugh and a touch.
⸻
They sat there until the stars came out.
And when Elara left later that night, they didn’t say goodbye.
Just:
“I’ll come back soon.”
And:
“I’ll be here.”
Not because they were angry.
But because grief is not always shared at the same speed.
Elara wrote.
Alina built.
Each pouring themselves into what they could control when so much else had slipped beyond reach.
But on a quiet Sunday, Elara returned to the house.
She didn’t tell Alina she was coming.
She just… showed up.
And when Alina opened the front door and saw her daughter standing there with her worn leather satchel and wind-kissed hair, something in her chest broke open—wide, warm, and unfinished.
“Elara,” she said softly.
And then Elara was in her arms.
⸻
They sat on the back steps with mugs of tea, watching the light shift through the trees above Elias’s grave.
Neither said his name for a long time.
They didn’t have to.
“I read your latest piece,” Alina said eventually. “About the old blue sweater he used to wear.”
Elara laughed, a little wetly. “He wore it even in summer.”
“He said it made him feel like himself,” Alina replied. “I never asked what that meant.”
“I think you were what made him feel like himself,” Elara said.
The quiet that followed wasn’t heavy.
It was full.
Full of truth.
Of memory.
Of forgiveness, for all the things they couldn’t change.
⸻
Alina reached into her cardigan and pulled out a folded envelope.
“I wasn’t sure when to give you this.”
Elara took it with careful fingers.
Inside was a photograph—one neither of them had ever seen.
Elias and Elara at the piano when she was five.
His hand guiding hers over the keys.
Both of them mid-laugh.
“Where did you find this?” Elara whispered.
“In the back of his closet,” Alina said. “Labeled ‘The Beginning of Everything.’”
Elara pressed the photo to her chest.
And in that moment, she understood:
Some legacies are written in ink.
Others are lived, quietly, in the spaces between a laugh and a touch.
⸻
They sat there until the stars came out.
And when Elara left later that night, they didn’t say goodbye.
Just:
“I’ll come back soon.”
And:
“I’ll be here.”
End of No flowers for the dead Chapter 36. Continue reading Chapter 37 or return to No flowers for the dead book page.