The changes were not immediate. Emma still sometimes asked whether she had done something wrong when Daniel came home tired. She occasionally took off the necklace before meeting new adults because she had learned to anticipate questions. Daniel did not insist that she wear it as proof that she was healed. He asked whether she wanted help putting it somewhere safe and reminded her that loving her mother was neither a performance nor a problem. Some evenings they looked through Hannah's sketchbooks. Other evenings they watched silly television shows and ate microwave popcorn without talking about grief at all. Gradually, Emma began to understand that happy days did not require her to forget the sad ones.
Lauren came on Saturdays when she could, sometimes with a bag of groceries and sometimes with nothing but time. She taught Emma a recipe Hannah had made badly but enthusiastically: blueberry pancakes that were always too dark on the edges. She told stories about Hannah as a little girl, including the time the sisters tried to paint their bedroom ceiling blue and blamed the family dog when their father discovered it. Daniel laughed so hard at that one that he nearly spilled his coffee. Emma watched him carefully, then laughed too. It was the first time she had heard two adults remember her mother without lowering their voices afterward.
In early autumn, Daniel took Emma on a bicycle ride along the Scioto Trail. The birthday bicycle from Celeste's garden had stayed behind, so he rebuilt a smaller blue bike from spare parts at his shop and let Emma choose every detail. She picked yellow handlebar grips, a silver bell, and a ridiculous rainbow basket. They stopped by the river to drink water and watch leaves float downstream. Emma sat beside him on the grass and turned the pendant between her fingers. "Dad, do you think Mom wanted me to have this so I wouldn't forget her?" she asked. He thought for a moment. "I think she wanted you to remember that you were loved, even on days when you couldn't see her. But you don't need a necklace to prove that."
Emma looked at the silver star shining in the afternoon sun. "I used to think that if I loved Celeste, it meant I was being bad to Mom," she said. "Then I thought loving Mom made me bad to Celeste." Daniel put an arm around her shoulders. "You weren't bad to either of them. Loving someone isn't a contest where somebody has to lose." She rested her head against him. "Then I think I'm going to keep loving Mom," she said. Daniel smiled. "I think she'd