I had begun to recognize those habits, and I wanted to change them.

Eventually, I decided to turn Grandpa’s bedroom into a guest room.

I kept his oak dresser and the quilt we’d mended.

I chose soft green paint instead of white and hung his landscape photograph beside the window.

It was not a shrine.

It was a room that could be lived in again.

I thought of Chloe claiming it from the stairs on the morning after his funeral.

The memory no longer made my hands shake.