The garden was quiet. Leo, now a toddler with messy curls and his father’s serious eyes, sat on a picnic blanket playing with a wooden truck.
Victoria walked onto the grass. She was trembling. She looked at William, then at the boy. To her, this was a stranger’s child.
“Hello,” she whispered, kneeling down.
Leo looked up. He didn’t cry. He stared at her with a child’s open curiosity. He reached out and handed her the truck.
Victoria took it. She smiled, a genuine, soft smile that William hadn’t seen in a year. Then, without speaking, she reached out. Her fingers moved automatically to the unruly curls on Leo’s forehead.
She began to braid the front section of his hair to keep it out of his eyes.
William froze. His breath hitched in his throat. It was a muscle memory–something she used to do every morning before the avalanche. Her mind had forgotten, but her hands remembered.
“There,” Victoria whispered, smoothing the hair. “That’s better.”
William turned away, covering his mouth to stifle a sob. The ghost was real. She was in there, buried under the snow of her memory, fighting to get out.