Then he would have laughed.
I used to believe the greatest gift my son left me was the house, the cars, or the account Paige never managed to touch.
I was wrong.
The greatest gift was that, even while frightened for himself, he had thought far enough ahead to protect me.
And the best way I knew to honor him was not to spend the rest of my life hiding behind locked doors.
So one warm Sunday afternoon, I opened every window in the lake house, invited six friends over for dinner, burned the chicken exactly as Michael predicted, and laughed so loudly that someone across the water shouted for us to keep it down.
For the first time since my son died, the sound did not make me feel guilty.
It made the house feel alive.
