A few times since Junie died I’ve caught myself feeling proud of her again, of how beautiful she was, and how often she wanted to be alone. And I feel proud of us, too, Mom and Dakotah and me, because I think Junie would have lived with someone else, somehow, if she had wanted to.
The afternoon after she died, I went home to spend a few hours with Jacob, who had been home alone so much that week. I was doing very bad. He had bought and wrapped three presents and put them under the Christmas tree. We lay on the bed and I cried big red daubs onto his pink shirt. He made dinner. We listened to the radio and drew pictures of Junie. Then when I was putting my coat on to go back to Mom’s, when I expected him to say “drive carefully,” or “call you in the morning,” he said instead, “You are my life.”
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