As the days passed, I noticed I had settled into habits I never expected. We should get your bottle. Let’s see what the birds are up to. It’s nap time. Somewhere along the way, “the baby” quietly became “Ava.”

I caught myself smiling whenever she smiled, laughing whenever she laughed. One afternoon, after I sneezed, she burst into the tiniest giggle, and before I realized it I was laughing right along with her.

The sound reached rooms that had stood silent for years. I hadn’t understood how lonely they had become.

Chapter 5 — The Pattern

One afternoon I spotted a loose stitch near the corner of the yellow blanket. I grabbed a needle and matching yarn and started fixing it almost automatically.

Halfway through, I froze. I recognized this pattern. Not merely one that looked similar — this exact design. I turned the blanket over in my hands, searching my memory for where I had seen it before.

Nothing surfaced. Only the faint feeling that it belonged to another chapter of my life. I wrapped it carefully around Ava again.