Chapter 28 - The Peony Room
Hope took her first steps inside Claire’s studio.
They were terrible steps.
Unstable.
Drunken.
Determined.
She released the edge of a workbench and staggered toward Vincent.
He dropped to his knees.
“Come on.”
Claire grabbed her phone.
Hope made one step.
Then another.
Then fell directly onto Vincent’s chest.
He caught her.
Claire cheered.
Hope laughed so loudly that Silas came downstairs wondering whether someone had won the lottery.
Vincent kissed the top of Hope’s head.
“We did.”
A week later, Claire discovered him renovating the unused room beside their bedroom.
The walls were painted pale cream.
A carpenter was installing shelves.
“What are you doing?”
Vincent looked guilty.
“Nothing.”
“There are three contractors in our house.”
“Minor nothing.”
Claire stepped inside.
Along one wall, a glass display cabinet had been installed.
Inside sat the original hospital footprint card.
Beside it was Claire’s first cracked sea-glass vessel.
Her old wedding note rested below.
You gave me fifteen minutes a day.
I’m giving you the rest of your life back.
Claire became still.
“What is this room?”
Vincent wiped sawdust from his hands.
“I wanted somewhere for the things we shouldn’t hide.”
Claire turned.
On another shelf sat the letter from Vanessa.
The newspaper from Richard Hale’s conviction.
The sea-glass ring box.
Photographs from their second wedding.
Hope’s hospital bracelet.
Claire’s eyes filled.
Vincent pointed toward the largest empty shelf.
“For the future.”
Claire smiled.
“What are you calling it?”
“The memory room.”
She shook her head.
“No.”
“What?”
“That sounds like a museum.”
He crossed his arms.
“You have a better idea?”
Claire looked through the window.
Outside, yellow peonies moved in the summer wind.
“The Peony Room.”
Vincent smiled.
“The Peony Room.”
Years passed.
Hope became a fearless child.
At four, she climbed everything.
At five, she asked why her father cried during birthday parties.
At six, she discovered the Peony Room.
Claire found her standing in front of the footprint card.
“Mommy?”
“Yes?”
“What is Baby Bennett-Moretti?”
Claire’s heart tightened.
She had known this day would come.
She knelt.
“That was your older brother or sister.”
Hope frowned.
“Where are they?”
Claire chose the truth carefully.
“They died before they were born.”
Hope’s face changed.
“Were you sad?”
“Very.”
“Was Daddy sad?”
“Yes.”
“Did I make you not sad?”
Claire pulled her close.
“No, sweetheart.”
Hope looked confused.
Claire kissed her hair.
“You didn’t replace anyone. You made our hearts bigger.”
That evening, Hope asked Vincent.
“Do you remember the other baby?”
Vincent put down his book.
“Every day.”
“Do you love them?”
“Yes.”
“Do you love me?”
“More than every ship in every ocean.”
Hope considered this.
“That’s a lot.”
“It is.”
She climbed into his lap.
“Can we give the baby a name?”
Vincent’s breath caught.
Claire stood silently in the doorway.
They had never named the child.
Grief had frozen that decision.
“What name?” Vincent whispered.
Hope thought.
“Angel?”
Vincent looked at Claire.
Claire smiled through tears.
“Angel Bennett-Moretti.”
Hope nodded.
“That’s my big sibling.”
The following spring, they planted a new peony bush beside the studio.
Underneath it, Vincent placed a simple stone marker.
ANGEL
LOVED BEFORE WE KNEW YOU.
REMEMBERED AFTER WE LOST YOU.
Hope placed a tiny clay star beside it.
Claire held Vincent’s hand.
For years, their first child had existed as a wound.
Now Angel existed as part of their family.
Not hidden.
Not erased.
Loved.
May you like
And beneath the Maine sunlight, surrounded by flowers and clay-covered fingerprints, grief finally stopped feeling like an empty room.
It became memory.
