A short scene of how Elizabeth and Will went to live with their Aunt Joan.
Joan looks at her niece. The grieving fifteen-year-old girl watching the fight unfold in front of her. Little Lizzie is watching all four of her grandparents fight over what should happen to her and Will now. What state they'll move to. What schools they'll go to. Whom they'll see and on what Holidays.
Joan has never thought so poorly of her parents. She knows they are grieving, too, the kind of grief that is so unimaginable that no one ever knows how to describe it. But though their daughter may be dead. Their grandchildren are alive. They buried their parents today; this fight is the last thing they need. Have they noticed that Will wakes up screaming every night because he was in the car too? Do they not see that Lizzie's guilt of not being in the car is eating the poor child alive?
Joan realizes that nothing that has happened since the accident has been for the benefit of Elizabeth and Will. No one has stopped for long enough to notice that they placed the burden of parenting onto the two people who need to be parented. Elizabeth is the one comforting her brother through nightmares. Will is the one cooking breakfast, always eggs, because it's all he can make. It's the only way Elizabeth eats because she would feel guilty if she didn't after her baby brother puts the effort in. This fight is doing nothing for these kids. Joan never wanted kids, but she looks at her niece and nephew, Elizabeth's arms around a crying Will as she promises her brother everything will be okay. Her mind seemingly working a thousand miles a minute, planning what to do next. She knows that Elizabeth takes after her brother-in-law, not her sister. Elizabeth is smart. She knows she is a pawn in the power struggle of whose grief is worse, the set of parents who lost their son or the ones who lost their daughter. And Joan knows what needs to be done.
"Lizzie, darling. What do you want to do?" Joan breaks away from the group and asks her favorite niece the question.
"I want to stay here." Elizabeth's sentence is absolute. Joan can see the determination in her young niece's eyes.
"Okay, I'll stay with you." Joan's mother snaps her head in her direction.
"Absolutely not!" Elizabeth flinches at her grandmother's harshness. Elizabeth has never been a fan of her. She's not sure how someone like her raised her mother. Her kind mother, who never shouted. Who never screamed. She always talked things out. She shudders at the thought of having to live with her and move to Texas to live with someone who, as far as Elizabeth can tell, cannot love. Someone who her mother and her aunt moved so far away from. She turns to her grandfather for help, but he holds his ground, refusing to give up his power.
Joan understands her niece and sees the strength in Elizabeth. Maybe it's unfair to the child, but she draws on it. "Mother, I will take them. I will live here with them."
"No!" Her mother shouts.
"Yes! I've been thinking about this since we were given the news. We have to do something for those children, and I think the best thing for them is me." Joan stands her ground, and Ben's father steps in.
"I think that'd be okay." He knows it's the easiest way to keep his grandkids close to him. To keep them in Virginia. He loves Elizabeth and Will. He does not want to lose them.
"It'll be great!" Elizabeth gives her grandmother a tight, nervous smile as she tries to convince her while clinging tightly to Will.
"Really?" Will looks at his sister and then back at his aunt.
"Yes. We'll figure it out. But this is your home, and you will stay here." Joan smiles at her nephew, and then her gaze meets her nieces. She's sure she's never seen that level of relief cross a teenager's face. And before she knows it, Elizabeth's arms are around her. And she is crying for the first time after her parent's death. Joan holds her close allowing her to cry into her shoulder.
"I'm so sorry, Lizzie. So sorry." She knows that the kids have heard that a lot since the accident, but only from strangers, not their family surrounding them in this room. Joan feels a tear roll down her cheek. She never wanted kids. But she has two now. And she loves them—more than anything.
"We're going to get through this, Lizzie. You know that, right?" Joan's heart aches when she thinks about her sister and brother-in-law. But she can't let them down. She feels Lizzie nod into her shoulder. Her mother watches over them and then looks at Will, and the disdain that crosses the thirteen-year-olds face tells her she has lost this battle. The kids will stay with Joan in the home they've always lived in.