The morning was overcast, the sky a soft grey that pressed gently against the earth. Sophie stood at the edge of the garden, hands buried in soil. Her mother's roses had survived the winter better than expected—stubborn, like the woman who planted them.
She heard Jake's footsteps on the gravel before she saw him.
He didn't say anything, just knelt beside her, picked up a small trowel, and started helping.
They worked in silence for a while, hands moving in rhythm. The earth, dark and damp, gave easily. Sophie felt the quiet between them, not empty, but full—of understanding, of time, of things unspoken and still felt.
"I found her old scarf," Jake said softly. "In the glovebox of the truck."
Sophie glanced at him.
"The red one?" she asked.
He nodded. "Still smells like lavender."
She smiled. "She used to tuck lavender in everything."
They both laughed, soft and sad.
That afternoon, Sophie went into town. Not for anything urgent—just to walk. To breathe.
The bookstore was playing an old record. The café was full of teenagers she didn't recognize. She wandered past the community center bulletin board, where someone had pinned a photo of her mother from years ago, laughing at a town fundraiser.
There was a note beside it.
"Gone, but never far."
Sophie didn't cry. But she felt it in her chest—the ache, the gratitude, the weight of being someone's daughter long after they're gone.
When she got home, she found Jake on the porch, holding the old cassette tape she'd played days ago.
"You want to hear it again?" he asked.
She nodded.
They sat shoulder to shoulder as the tape turned once more. Her mother's voice floated out, like a letter from another world.
"If you're here, you've made it through something hard. And I'm proud of you."
That night, they cooked dinner together. Pasta and garlic bread. Nothing fancy, but it felt like tradition.
Jake talked about his dad's heart condition, about the way grief sometimes showed up as anger, and how he didn't know what to do with all the time he thought he'd have.
Sophie talked about the city. The loneliness between shows. The emptiness of applause when it wasn't shared with someone who mattered.
And then, gently, they talked about them.
"I waited," Jake said, not accusingly. "Not in a stuck way. Just… I always wondered if we'd find our way back."
Sophie swallowed hard.
"I think part of me hoped we would," she said. "But I didn't know if we could."
He looked at her then—not the girl she was, but the woman she had become.
"I think we are," he said.
And she believed him.
The stars came out late. The air cooled. Crickets hummed in the distance.
Sophie leaned her head on Jake's shoulder. He rested his cheek against her hair.
"I don't know what happens next," she whispered.
Jake smiled into the dark.
"We don't have to," he said. "We just have to be here now."
And for the first time in a long time, now felt like enough.