Adele didn’t bend an inch.

She had spent twenty-nine years bending; she had discovered, in a hospital bed, that she was done.

A year after that terrible afternoon, she brought Finn to visit her grandmother’s grave.

The little boy was walking now, in the unsteady, delighted way of new walkers, lurching across the grass to grab at the bright flowers along the path.

Bram stood a few yards back, giving them room while keeping them both inside his careful, watchful eye.

Adele set a single white rose on the polished granite.