I’m 46 years old, and my life ended at 9:47 p.m. two years ago. The cops came to my door in the October rain and told me that a drunk driver had taken my husband and both of our kids three blocks from home. Since then, I’ve been moving around the house like a ghost that forgot it was allowed to leave. I eat because my body tells me to, sleep because the clock says so, and live because I haven’t figured out how not to.
Before the sounds, we were just beautiful noise. When Mark tried to make scrambled eggs in college, he set off the fire alarm. That’s how I met Mark. He never told our kids about it, and they wouldn’t let him. Even though he was sixteen, tall, and tried not to be sweet, Josh still needed chocolate-chip pancakes every Sunday. Emily, who is fourteen, read fiction books at the table while she and her brother argued about music playlists. I wouldn’t sand off the pen marks and coffee rings on our kitchen table. They showed.
It took place the night they were going to get pizza and garlic knots. When I told Mark to be careful on the road, he kissed my face and said, “Always do.” Later, I remember hearing thin, faraway sirens. I thought that someone else was having a bad night. I was already having a bad night when I opened the door for the police.
Three closed caskets, a neighbor’s hand on mine, and voices that sounded like I was underwater made the world very quiet after the service. I stopped taking calls. I put together a stack of sorrow cards that had not been opened. I held Josh’s basketball while sitting in his room. I stayed away from Emily’s opening like a sore thumb. Even now, the morning light was still moving across the floors and touching the empty chairs.
In late October of that year, I took the bus because the empty house was too loud. At a stop in downtown, a flyer with the words “HALLOWEEN COSTUME DRIVE—HELP OUR KIDS CELEBRATE” was stuck to a corkboard. It showed kids in cheap costumes with smiles that showed their gaps between teeth. Below: a lot of our kids have never worn clothes. Let them know they’re important.
There was a small crack in the wall of numbness I had built around myself. I went home and finally went up to the attic I had been putting off. The big plastic bin was sitting in the dirt. Inside: memories from childhood kept. Emily’s bumblebee, whose wings were crooked, which I fixed twice with glue. Josh’s fireman jacket had Velcro that never really stuck. We hemmed and re-hemmed a fairy dress as her legs got longer. It smelled like soap and something I could almost remember if I didn’t try too hard. I held the bumblebee close to my chest.
They don’t need to live in a box. They should eat kids.
The next morning, I took the first bunch to a shelter. After that I wrote on Facebook. I went door-to-door. When I was in a big-box store, I cried as I looked at sparkly wings because Emily would have wanted those. By Saturday, my car looked like a costume shop on wheels.
Sarah, who runs the shelter and has kind eyes and a sensible smile, looked at the mountain in my trunk. “This is great,” she said. “A party is being planned.” You are welcome to come.
I did not want to say no. There were times when other people deserved to be happy. But I said yes with my mouth.
Lots of kids running around with sugar and attention made the common room a happy mess. Someone saw a little pirate wave a foam sword around and laughed. Two witches wearing the same hats whispered secrets to each other like they were friends. As he ran by, someone in a superhero cape kept making whooshing noises. No one cared that they sang Halloween songs that weren’t in tune. A thin, almost unnoticeable warmth crept under the sadness for the first time since the sirens went off.
A small voice found me as I limped toward the door. “Miss Alison?”
I turned around. There was a bumblebee. It was Emily’s bumblebee, with its bent wing and dancing antennae. I chose the color yellow because she said bees were the happiest animals. The girl who wore it couldn’t have been older than six. Eyes brown. A mouth set with real hope.
I believe Miss Sarah told me you brought outfits.
“I did,” I said while on my knees. “How do you like yours?”
I shook back when she threw herself into my arms with such force. “Thanks!” “Being a bumblebee was always my dream!”
The moment she pulled away, her face changed into a style that was too old for a child. She spoke slowly, as if she were trying a thin piece of ice. “My mom left me here a long time ago.” “But you’re nice.”
The air got thinner. There was music and laughter going on all around me, but I couldn’t hear any of it.
“Perhaps…” She looked at my hands as she twisted the hem. “Could you be my mom?”
My heart was heavy with that question, even though it was soft. “Would you like that?” I spoke softly. “Is it okay if I’m… older?”
She looked at me with the seriousness of a judge. Then she smiled, and her gap-toothed burst looked so much like Emily’s that I had to swallow. She told him, “You’re right.” “Think about it.”
She walked three steps, turned around, and said, “Hi, my name is Mia!” Just in case you were wondering!”
It was late that night, and I was still awake when my alarm went off. It was like going back into a house that had already been burned down to love again. What if I wasn’t good enough? What if I broke her too? It was possible for me to say no to the only spark that had found me, but I didn’t want to.
I had an answer by morning. I drove to the shelter while shaking my hands on the wheel. I told Sarah, “I want to know more about adoption.” “The little bee.” “Mia.”
She put a stack of papers between us and said, “She hasn’t stopped talking about you.” “Two years ago, her mother gave up her rights.”
Then came the long but important part: background checks, home studies, and interviews where I had to lay out my grief and name its edges. A social worker told me, “She needs consistency.” “Could you give that?” It shocked me that I didn’t think twice. “Yes.”
The phone rang after six weeks. All right.
Mia was drawing bees that wouldn’t stay in one place on a piece of paper when I walked back into the community room. When she saw me, she looked up and ran like she knew what was going to happen. “You came back!”
“Yes,” I told her as I grabbed her and wouldn’t let go. “I’ll keep coming back if you let me.”
“Are you going to be my mom?” She just stood there and bounced, her hope as loud as a song.
I said, “If you want me.” Yes, tears. Having fun anyway. “Thank you very much.”
She said she would be good, eat veggies, and clean her room. I told her that love wasn’t worth that much. I believed her when she said, “I already love you.”
It’s been two years. Mia is eight years old and really wants to become a “bee doctor.” She told us that this job helps bees make honey, which makes people happy. She draws bees on printer paper, streets, and mirrors that are foggy. It’s loud again in the morning. In the shower, she sings off key. She really believes that ketchup is a food. When she leaves, she doesn’t close the toothpaste caps or put glitter on the kitchen table. The house still feels lived in, or alive.
Grief is still there, but it has learned to share the room. There are still coffee rings on the old table, and I can still see two kids arguing about music while their dad makes breakfast. A pain sometimes wakes me up before I do. On the way to school, Mia’s small hand slides into mine, her latest bee with a cape is revealed like news, and her bad dream at 2 a.m. is solved by my shoulder being in the right place.
At 9:47 on a wet October night, I thought my life was over. It wasn’t. It stopped and had to wait. A child dressed up as a witch with crooked wings came through a small hole in a bus stop flyer and asked the question that made my heart beat again. I wasn’t able to change the past. I could answer the question.
Mia says that bees dance to get home. It’s possible that’s true, but I know this for sure: a little girl in a bumblebee suit showed me the way, and now our house is noisy again. Not the same sound. Different. Ours.