Chapter 5: Pictures
When Edaline came out of her trance, Keller was laughing and Dex was grumbling. Sophie pulled her out of the store and back home.
Edaline didn't mean to be rude to Sophie. But she wanted to get away from...whatever was going on...well, just everything.
She watched silently out her window as Grady tried to teach Sophie to light leap in the backyard. Edaline counted her fails. On attempt 57, Sophie made it. Edaline cheered quietly for her daughter.
Daughter.
Sophie didn't feel like a daughter. She felt like a child that had come over to play. Like their real child would come back any day now.
Sophie wasn't her daughter yet.
Yet.
Edaline got up from the dark blue bed and walked over to the wood dresser covered in pictures.
The first one was her and Grady, holding a baby, who was Jolie, and a purple journal in Jolie's lap.
The second one was of her and Grady and Jolie again, this time Jolie was one. Her blonde hair was up in a short ponytail A over her head.
It went on and on, the same picture every year. When she was older, Jolie was holding the journal and actually smiling. Each time Edaline was brought back for a few seconds, into another world where her daughter-
her daughter
-was alive and healthy. Smiling. She could smell Jolie's hair and feel her soft skin. Everything was okay.
But Edaline knew it wasn't.
Because the minute she blinked, her perfect world came crashing down into one little picture frame that meant nothing and everything.
Why did Jolie have to die?
Edaline sighed as she heard Grady open the door and footsteps as Sophie clumped up to her room.
She heard Grady talking, but she didn't know who until the door opened and a mass of amber hair almost her own crashed over her and the two sisters landed on the bed, giggling like little girls.
Maybe everything was going to be okay.