“I’ll stay here,” she whispered.
Her grandmother, seated in the corner with swollen eyes and trembling fingers, raised her voice gently. “Let her be, Caroline. We all say goodbye in our own way.”
The hours crept by. Cups of coffee were poured and emptied, plates of bread and cheese were passed between weary hands, stories of Alistair’s easy laughter and kind nature floated through the room. Still, Elodie remained. She refused food, refused a seat, asking only for the chair that allowed her to be close enough to touch the coffin without stretching.
“She doesn’t understand,” muttered an aunt.
“She’s in shock,” another whispered.
A neighbor lowered her voice further. “No… she’s waiting for something.”
The comment settled uneasily in the room.
By evening, the glow of candlelight turned the parlor amber. Unease spread like smoke, with more glances drifting toward the child than toward the coffin. She leaned against the polished wood, her chin resting there as if expecting her father to stir at any moment.
“I want to stay with him,” Elodie whispered again when her mother tried to coax her to bed.
Her grandmother draped a blanket around her small shoulders, and the family let her remain.
The night dragged on. Cigarettes glowed faintly on the porch as uncles whispered under the stars. In the kitchen, cousins nursed cups of bitter coffee, reheated one too many times. Inside, the grandmother’s knitting needles clicked faintly though her hands shook with every stitch.
Close to midnight, when weariness had softened the edges of grief, Elodie moved. Slowly, carefully, she climbed from the chair, rested one knee on the coffin’s edge, and hoisted herself inside. At first, no one noticed.
It was an aunt’s shrill cry that shattered the quiet. “She’s in there! She climbed in with him!”
The room erupted. Chairs scraped, voices rose in panic. But when they rushed forward, they froze.
The little girl was not struggling. She was curled gently against her father’s chest, her arms wrapped tightly around him. And what silenced everyone was not her stillness but his.
Alistair’s arm, which had lain folded across his chest since morning, now rested against his daughter’s back. The hand was curved naturally, fingers slightly bent, as though embracing her.
Gasps rippled through the mourners. Some crossed themselves in trembling reverence, others insisted the child’s movement must have shifted the arm, but those nearest swore it was impossible. The tenderness in that gesture could not be mistaken for chance.
“Do not touch her,” the grandmother commanded, her voice ringing with unexpected strength. “Let her be.”
No one argued.
The hours that followed were filled with whispers and prayers, with fearful glances and quiet tears. Elodie remained pressed against her father’s chest, breathing evenly, as though sleeping in his arms. The grandmother murmured through tears that perhaps God had granted them a final embrace. Her mother stood pale and trembling, unable to decide if she should pull the child away or kneel in awe.
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