The Grief Phase

I tried to tell my dad on a Saturday, while Bianca was at the gym, the two of us alone in the kitchen with the radio on low.

"Dad. Bianca gets mad when I won't call her Mom."

He didn't look up from the dishes right away. "She's not mad, Luce. She just really wants this to feel like a family. It's been hard on her too, you know, trying so hard and feeling like she's not getting anywhere."

"She held my arm really tight," I said, quieter.

That got him to turn around. For one second I thought he actually heard me. Then Bianca's car pulled into the driveway, and by the time she walked in with her gym bag and her easy smile, my dad had already decided, somewhere in his face, that this was a conversation for later that never quite arrived.

"You two look serious," Bianca said, setting her bag down.

"Lucy's just having a hard week," Dad said, and I understood, watching him say it, that he'd already rewritten what I told him into something smaller and easier to carry. "Still adjusting. The grief counselor said phases like this are normal."

Bianca's eyes found mine over his shoulder, warm and sympathetic on the surface, and underneath that, something that told me exactly how this would go if I pushed any further.

That evening I went looking for my shoebox and found my bed already made, the dish towel folded on top of my dresser instead of hiding anything underneath it, and the little torn corner of my mother's photograph gone.