Page 128 of The Woman Left Behind

Lillian came to Harry and handed him a beer. Then she claimed him from the side with her arm around his waist, so he slid his around her shoulders.

He took a sip and watched her face.

And fuck yeah.

The lightness was there.

There were two integral pieces missing who would always be lost to her.

But her family was home.

“Oh my God, the sunflower war!” Sherise yelled.

Lillian giggled. “We could barely get into our houses when Mom and Ronnie were trying to outdo each other with sunflowers.”

“The stalks of those are rough as hell. Think I lived a whole month coated in Neosporin,” Shane put in.

“I can only say I was sure glad it was petunias the next year,” George stated.

“Av won,” Ronetta sniffed. “Av always won.”

“And you always beat her with the better cornbread,” Lillian said, then she took a bite of the same.

They were sitting around George and Ronetta’s dining room table, eating fried fish, green beans, some carrot and turnip mash that Harry thought would suck, but was phenomenal, and cornbread, which Lillian was right, it was the best he’d ever tasted.

And Harry was paying close attention, because conversation had moved to remembrances of Sonny and Avery, and he wanted to make sure Lillian was cool with it.

But Lillian was not only cool with it, she was blossoming under it.

He caught Shane’s gaze, and Shane gave him a nod, sharing he was having a mind too.

So Harry looked to George, who tipped his head to the side to acknowledge he was on the lookout as well.

“I thought I’d never want to look at another sunflower after that year,” Sherise said, then her voice changed. “But now, they’re my favorite flower.”

Harry tensed, he sensed Shane and George tensing.

But Lillian just reached out a hand across the table, Sherise took it, and they held on, with fingers and gazes, before they broke and Lillian said, “Remember when Mom got it in her head to have a chicken coop?”

Sherise burst out laughing, Ronetta chuckled, even Shane and George smiled.

And George said, “By the time she finally gave up on that, Sonny was running out of excuses as to why he couldn’t build one for her. He wanted to spend his weekends cleaning up chicken poop like he wanted his fingernails pulled out at the roots. He kept coming over and asking me for new excuses she might buy, and damned if I wasn’t running out of them too.”

“I’ll tell you what, if I had a rooster waking me up at the crack of dawn, there’d be some super fresh fried chicken on my dinner table that night,” Ronetta declared.

And everyone was laughing.

“Think that’s the only thing Sonny ever refused her,” Ronetta whispered to her plate.

Lillian slouched to the side and hit Harry.

Harry wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

“He spoiled her something rotten, didn’t he?” Lillian asked.

“Every damn day of his life, baby girl,” George answered. “Every damn day.”

Sherise sniffled.

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