“Dad,” Gareth whispered.

Except it wasn’t the video that Leo had originally set out to show him, the one begging Zirkus Crayt for help.

This one was new, and it was addressed to his son.

Telling him goodbye.

She always waved from the open door. Every morning before school. He could see her from the corner, looking back over his shoulder as the autobus pulled up. She would never embarrass him by waiting at the stop with him—he had Gareth to protect him, after all, though once they were on the bus, Leo was on his own, his bigger brother sitting in the back with his friends. Leo always sat on the right side so he could wave back to her through the window, nothing obnoxious, just one hand pressed to the glass.

And when he came home, she was there again. The front door open so she could hear the bus’s electric whine as it pulled into the stop and be ready. She would take a break from her work to come stand on the porch again, clutching a cup of coffee, of course, leaning against the doorframe next to the family plaque, the wooden wind chimes calling the Fender boys home with a ti-di-a-li. He would run to her, backpack bouncing, smile stretched, while Gareth sauntered coolly behind.

Rare was the day she wasn’t waiting for them—when she had an appointment or was too caught up in her work. Those were the days Leo got off the bus with a heavy step, his backpack weighing him down, wishing for an open door. Coming home just wasn’t the same if Gareth had to fish out his key.

He would still see her sometimes. In the days after. Days when the door was always shut. He’d catch her just out of the corner of his eye. In the flicker of light captured by a shard of broken glass. In the window of a passing car. Just a glimpse. Quick as a blink. He knew it was his imagination, but he felt her presence everywhere. In the unfinished novel that his dad still kept on her nightstand, the old shoelace she used as a bookmark showing she’d only made it halfway. Tucked away in the spice rack gathering dust on the kitchen counter or her blue bicycle leaning against the side of the garage. He’d see the last apple sitting in the crisper and think of the time she took him to the orchard and lifted him to her shoulders so that he could get the ones his giant brother couldn’t even reach. Matching socks from the basket of clean laundry, remembering how she would slip one over her hand, bringing it to life, transforming it into a snake determined to eat Leo’s nose. The chair she always sat in at dinner. The train of colored scarves that she’d pulled from his ears.

But never when he got off the bus. He could not find her then. Only the closed door. The empty porch. And the mournful sound of wind and hollowed wood whispering goodbye.