From the outside, our life looked perfect. We lived in a cozy house with white shutters and a lemon tree in the backyard. On Sundays, we walked hand in hand to the farmer’s market, sipping coffee while the girls picked out tiny jars of honey.
Friday nights were movie nights, usually “Moana” or “Frozen” for what felt like the millionth time, and the girls always fell asleep in a tangled heap before the movie ended. Paul would carry them upstairs, and afterward, we would finish the popcorn together in silence.
A man holding a remote control while eating popcorn with his wife | Source: Pexels
He never forgot birthdays or anniversaries. Sometimes, I’d find sticky notes on the bathroom mirror with little hearts drawn on them. He used to tell me I was the “calm” in his storm. And I believed him. I really did. Because when you’re living inside love, it doesn’t feel like a fairytale. It feels like gravity, steady, invisible, and always there.
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But everything started to shift the day my grandmother died.
She was 92 and still lived in the same small house where she had raised my mom. It sat quietly on a hill, surrounded by hydrangeas and old oak trees. That house was my second home growing up.
She used to bake lavender cookies and pour tea into mismatched cups while telling me stories about her childhood during the war. The whole place always smelled like her. Lavender soap, Earl Grey tea, and that faint powdery perfume she never stopped wearing.
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