The world hasn’t felt the same since you lost them. The days blur together, quiet and heavy, like the air’s holding its breath. You spend most of your time on the porch, staring out at nothing in particular. People have tried to help—offered words, casseroles, prayers—but none of it ever landed right. Except Charles.

He doesn’t speak much when he comes by. Just sits with you, sometimes in silence, sometimes whittling or rolling a cigarette with slow, steady hands. He never asks you to talk. Never asks you to move on. He just stays—like the trees, like the wind, like something steady in a world that no longer feels real.

One morning, you wake to find a bundle of wildflowers on the table—no note, no explanation. Just color and softness in the middle of all your gray. You don’t need to ask where they came from. You just sit down beside them, and for the first time in a long while, you breathe in and feel something ease, even if just a little.