We ate the pie after dinner.
I wish I could say the difficult part was over.
It wasn't.
But something had changed.
Aurora no longer seemed to be measuring every word before speaking.
And I no longer felt that every painful memory needed an explanation attached to it.
We sat at the table with our plates in front of us.
The house was quiet.
For years, I had hated that kind of quiet whenever Maisie was mentioned.
I thought it meant someone was suffering.
Now I began to understand that silence could mean someone was thinking.
There was a difference.
Aurora took another bite.
Then she looked at me.
"Are you going to tell me more about the manuscript?"
I smiled faintly.
"There's a lot to tell."
"I gathered that from the size of it."
I looked toward the stairs.
Arthur's pages were still upstairs.
I had left them on his desk before Aurora arrived.
I hadn't wanted to put the manuscript between us during dinner.
I wanted us to talk first.
Not about the story Arthur had invented.
About the family we had actually been.
Now that we had spoken, I felt less afraid of showing her what I had found.
But I wasn't ready to hand her unfinished pages.
Not yet.
"I've only read part of it," I told her.
"How much?"
"Enough to know your father had a much busier imagination than I realized."
She smiled.
"That doesn't surprise me."
I laughed.
It shouldn't have surprised me either.
Arthur had always told stories in his own way.
He could make an ordinary trip to the store sound like an adventure.
He could turn a small household repair into a long explanation about why the problem had been more complicated than anyone expected.
And whenever Aurora made a mistake as a child, he usually found something about it that made him laugh.
I remembered the birthday cake she had once ruined.
She had been ten.
She was helping make Arthur's cake, and somehow the sugar had been replaced with salt.
I could still remember Arthur's expression after the first bite.
He had tried to be polite.
Then he had attempted a second bite, which had been an even worse decision.
I had laughed until I could barely speak.
Aurora noticed my smile.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Mom."
I shook my head.
"I was thinking about one of your father's birthdays."
She narrowed her eyes.
"Which one?"
I laughed again.
"The cake."
Her mouth fell open.
"Oh, no."
I nodded.
"That cake."
She put down her fork.
"I was ten."
"I remember."
"I was trying to help."
"I know."
She covered her face for a moment.
"I can't believe he actually ate some."
"He tried."
"He said it was unusual."
I laughed.
"That was a generous description."
She joined me.
For a few moments, the dining room sounded like it used to.
Two people laughing about Arthur.
Not crying because he wasn't there.
Not trying to avoid saying his name.
Just remembering something foolish he had done.
I had missed that.
I hadn't realized how much.
Aurora wiped at the corner of her eye.
"Poor Dad."
I smiled.
"He never let that story disappear."
"No, he didn't."
Then her expression softened.
"I miss him."
The words were simple.
I looked at her.
"So do I."
She nodded.
We didn't need to say more.
That was another thing I was learning.
Not every feeling needed to be explained.
Sometimes it only needed to be shared.
After dessert, Aurora helped me clear the table.
She carried the plates while I took the serving dishes.
We worked side by side in the kitchen.
I remembered doing the same thing with Arthur.
He usually tried to make himself useful.
Then he would get distracted by something that needed repairing.
I smiled at the thought.
Aurora noticed.
"What are you smiling about?"
"Your father."
"What did he do?"
"Nothing this time."
She laughed.
"That would be unusual."
I shook my head.
"He always found something to fix."
Aurora looked toward the living room.
"Except that couch."
"Oh, he fixed it."
"Then why did it always feel like it was eating us?"
I laughed.
"Because he considered that a successful repair."
She smiled.
Then her gaze moved toward the empty space where the couch had stood.
For a moment, we were both quiet.
I knew what she was thinking.
That old brown thing had been part of our home for most of her life.
She had grown up sitting on it.
Arthur had spent years defending it.
And now it belonged to a little girl named Emma.
I pictured Emma watching cartoons with Josh.
I hoped they were comfortable.
I hoped the cushions hadn't swallowed them completely.
Aurora turned back to me.
"Did the man who bought it ever say anything else?"
I hesitated.
I hadn't told her every detail about Josh finding the manuscript.
I had been so focused on Arthur's writing that I had barely explained how it reached me.
"He came back the next morning."
She looked surprised.
"Why?"
"His daughter dropped a pencil between the cushions."
Aurora smiled.
"That sounds familiar."
"He turned the couch over to find it."
"And?"
"He noticed stitching underneath."
She stared at me.
"Of course Dad had sewn something into the couch."
I laughed.
"I suppose that should have been my first thought too."
Aurora shook her head.
"That man could hide a whole library in furniture."
"He almost did."
She smiled.
Then she became serious.
"Was the buyer upset?"
"No."
"Did he want to return it?"
"He offered."
"What did you say?"
"I told him his daughter should keep it."
Aurora looked pleased.
"Good."
I nodded.
"She was so happy when she sat on it."
"Then it's where it belongs."
I looked toward the living room again.
That was exactly how I felt.
I had thought selling Arthur's couch would mean losing one more piece of him.
Instead, it had brought his words back into my hands.
And it had given another father and daughter somewhere to sit together.
There was something fitting about that.
I didn't need to say it aloud.
Aurora understood.
We finished cleaning the kitchen.
Then we returned to the table.
She sat down for a moment while I folded the towel.
I could tell she still had something on her mind.
She was turning her glass slowly between her fingers.
I waited.
Finally, she spoke.
"Mom, could I read Dad's book when you're finished?"
I looked at her.
"All of it?"
She nodded.
"I'd like to."
I thought about the wedding chapter.
The imaginary birthday parties.
The pages that had made me laugh and cry in the same afternoon.
I thought about my own confusion.
And the question that still troubled me.
Why hadn't I found Aurora in the story?
I didn't want her to feel excluded again.
But I also knew I couldn't keep hiding things from her because I was afraid of how they might make her feel.
That was what had started our argument.
I looked at her carefully.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Some of it is painful."
"I know."
I studied her face.
She was twenty-nine.
Not six.
Not a little girl standing beside me with a photograph she didn't understand.
She was a grown woman asking to know more about her father and sister.
I had no right to decide she couldn't bear it.
"Then of course you can read it."
She smiled.
"Thank you."
I nodded.
"I just want to finish it first."
"That's fine."
I considered telling her about my worry.
About the missing chapters.
About how I hadn't found her name.
But I stopped myself.
I didn't know what the remaining pages contained.
I had already made assumptions about the manuscript.
I didn't want to make another one before I had read it all.
Arthur had written far more than I expected.
There might be something I hadn't reached yet.
I needed to keep reading.
Aurora looked at me.
"Mom?"
"Yes?"
She hesitated.
Then she spoke quietly.
"You don't have to understand everything before you talk to me."
I looked at her.
She continued.
"I never expected you to have all the answers."
I felt my throat tighten.
For years, I had believed being a good mother meant having answers ready.
Answers about why people died.
Answers about why families changed.
Answers about why sadness sometimes stayed long after everyone expected it to fade.
When I didn't have those answers, I avoided the questions.
I thought uncertainty would frighten Aurora.
But she had never asked me to be certain.
She had asked me to be honest.
I put the towel down.
"I wish I'd understood that when you were little."
Aurora smiled sadly.
"So do I."
There was no anger in her voice.
Just the truth.
I walked around the table.
She stood.
I hugged her.
Not quickly.
Not the polite embrace we sometimes exchanged when she was leaving.
I held her the way I used to when she was small enough to fit against me without bending.
She put her arms around me.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
I thought of the drawing she had thrown away.
The one with all four of us.
I wished I could see it.
Not because it would change what happened.
But because it would show me how Aurora had understood our family.
She had included her sister.
She had made room for someone she'd never met.
And I had been too frightened of grief to realize she wanted me to do the same.
I pulled back.
"I'm glad you came."
She smiled.
"Me too."
I walked her to the door.
She picked up her things.
Then she glanced toward the stairs.
"Don't stay up all night reading."
I laughed.
"I'll try not to."
"Mom."
"What?"
"Try harder than Dad did."
I smiled.
Arthur had been terrible at leaving things unfinished once he became interested in them.
I could picture him sitting at his desk, promising he would come to bed in a few minutes.
Then losing track of time.
"I'll do my best."
Aurora opened the door.
She paused.
"Call me after you've read more."
"I will."
She stepped outside.
Then she turned back.
"And don't worry about saying the perfect thing."
I nodded.
"I won't."
She smiled.
Then she left.
I watched her walk to her car.
I stayed at the door until she drove away.
The house became quiet again.
But it wasn't the same quiet I had known after Arthur died.
I wasn't sitting in an empty room trying to pretend nothing had changed.
I had spoken honestly with my daughter.
We had admitted things we had both been carrying.
Nothing was fixed completely.
I knew that.
One dinner couldn't undo years of silence.
But we had started.
And for once, I wasn't afraid of what might happen if we kept talking.
I closed the door.
Then I went upstairs.
Arthur's desk was where I had left it.
The notebooks were back in their drawer.
The manuscript lay on the wooden surface near the window.
I sat down.
For a moment, I looked at his handwriting.
I thought about Aurora asking to read the whole book.
I thought about the things she remembered.
The quiet Junes.
The closed photograph albums.
The drawing she had thrown away.
Then I looked at the pages Arthur had written.
I had spent so much time wondering why he had imagined a future for Maisie that I hadn't considered something else.
He had been living that future beside the real life we shared.
And our real life had been full of Aurora.
There had to be more to his story.
I didn't know what.
But I was ready to read it.
I picked up the manuscript.
I found the place where I had stopped.
Then I turned the page.
Click here to continue reading: PART 7: I Returned to My Husband’s Unfinished Pages Expecting More Imagined Memories, but a Familiar Childhood Moment Changed Everything I Thought I Knew
I Sold the Couch My Husband Refused to Replace, Never Imagining a Stranger Would Bring Something Back the Very Next Morning
Part 6 of 12
