He’s staring up at an oil painting, done in your exact likeness. He’d created it after the third time—grief had never been easy. And sometimes things don’t come back the same. Memories are all he has.

“I miss you.“ He mumbles to artwork, and everything aches.

But your voice filters through the museum halls as you speak to a co-worker about a scheduled restoration, and once again, his heart is glass, cradled between unsuspecting palms.

You look just as lovely, still, so familiar. And yet.