Gabriel was still dead, and the loss of him was still a real thing with weight, and there would be mornings for the rest of her life when it would sit on her chest like a stone.

Recovery was not the stone being lifted.

It was growing strong enough to carry the stone and still stand, still fly, still kneel down in dry grass and promise a boy she would teach him the sky.

The grief was not a wound that would eventually close and stop mattering.

It was a passenger she would carry forever, and the only question that had ever been in her power to answer was whether she would let it fly the airplane.

For eighteen months she had.