PART 13 — The chair that is no longer empty
That evening, when I arrived back at my own house, I walked straight to the dining table. It was dark outside. The streetlamps cast shadows through the window. I looked at the table. No extra plate. No empty chair waiting for a miracle. Instead, a large photo album lay on the table that Emma had given me that afternoon—a copy of her own album, filled with pictures of Daan, of herself, of us together during that walk in the park last weekend.
I pulled out my chair, sat down, and opened the book. On the first page Emma had written in her own hand with a blue fountain pen: For Mom, because it’s never too late to start over. I stroked my fingers over the ink, which had dried by now but still shimmered in the light of the table lamp. The house was no longer quiet. The house was alive again.
Not because the walls had changed or the memories had been erased, but because the silence was filled with voices, with laughter, and with the knowledge that love is not lost as long as you are willing to open the door.
