Winter Garden

by Kristin Hannah

Everyone broke—and held themselves together—in their own way.

But how could she lose him? He was her level ground, her North Star. The one person who was always waiting for her to come home.

“What will we be without him?” Meredith whispered, clinging to her. “Less,”

He was home, the very heart of them. How would they stand life without him?

The thought of it, of watching his life turn into the details of death, was almost more than Nina could bear.

“To those who are here, those who are gone, and those who are lost.”

They would always be a family, but if she’d learned anything in the past few weeks it was that a family wasn’t a static thing. There were always changes going on. Like with continents, sometimes the changes were invisible and underground, and sometimes they were explosive and deadly. The trick was to keep your balance. You couldn’t control the direction of your family any more than you could stop the continental shelf from breaking apart. All you could do was hold on for the ride.

Children become adults who become children again.

If there was one thing she’d learned in all of this, it was that life—and love—can be gone any second. When you had it, you needed to hang on with all your strength and savor every second.

Joy and sadness were part of the package; the trick, perhaps, was to let yourself feel all of it, but to hold on to the joy just a little more tightly because you never knew when a strong heart could just give out.