Just the steady rustle of the trees and the bright, clear sky overhead.
I knelt beside the stone, placing a single, perfect navy tie across the polished granite surface—the exact color Daniel had worn three weeks before everything changed, and the color I had chosen to remember him by.
Noah stood beside me, holding a small silver pocket watch his father had given him on his seventh birthday. He flipped it open, listening to the steady, rhythmic ticking of the internal gears.
“He would have been proud of us, Mom,” Noah said softly.
I smiled, reaching out to take my son’s hand, feeling the warm, unyielding grip of the future we had fought so hard to reclaim.
“He always knew we would be,” I replied. “We just had to let the truth speak for itself.”
