When Calla’s five-year-old daughter pointed to the pale-yellow house across the street and whispered that her dead brother was smiling from the window, Calla felt the ground split open beneath her all over again. Was grief cruel enough to torment a child… or had something impossible taken root on their quiet little street?
It has been exactly one month since Felix died. He was eight.
A driver never saw him on his bike coming home from school, and in one heartbeat the world lost its color.
Some mornings I still walk into his room expecting to see him hunched over his dinosaurs, arguing with himself about which one would win in a fight. His shampoo still lingers on the pillow. The Lego spaceship on his desk is missing exactly three pieces because he swore he’d finish it “tomorrow.”
Grief is a tide that never fully recedes. It just pulls back far enough to let you breathe before it crashes again.
Whitaker tries to be the strong one. He leaves early, comes home late, and when he thinks I’m asleep I hear him crying in the garage. He holds Hazen a little longer, a little tighter, like he’s afraid the universe might notice it still has one child left to take.
And then there’s Hazen. Five years old, all questions and sticky fingers and unshakable belief in magic. She still asks where her big brother went.
“Is Felix with the stars now, Mommy?”
“He’s with people who love him very much,” I tell her, and somehow manage not to break.
We were surviving. Barely.
Then one ordinary Tuesday, Hazen looked up from her coloring book and said, completely matter-of-fact,
“Mommy, Felix is in the window across the street. He smiled at me.”
She pointed at the pale-yellow house with the peeling shutters and curtains that never moved.
My spoon clattered into the sink.
I told her it was her imagination. That when we miss someone we love, our hearts play tricks. She just shook her head, pigtails swinging.
“No, Mommy. He waved.”
That night she left a drawing on the table: two houses, two windows, a stick-figure boy with Felix’s exact crooked grin standing in the opposite one.
I stared at it until the lines blurred.
Every night after that I found myself at the living-room window, watching that silent yellow house like it might speak.
Whitaker found me there one night and wrapped his arms around me from behind.
“You have to sleep, Cal.”
“I know,” I whispered. “But she’s so sure.”
He rested his chin on my shoulder. “Kids see what they need to see.”
I wanted to believe that.
But the next morning, while walking the dog, I glanced up.
And there he was.
A small boy in the upstairs window, sunlight catching sandy hair that stuck up exactly like Felix’s used to. He tilted his head the same way. For one impossible second the world stopped breathing.
Then the curtain fell back into place.
I stood frozen on the sidewalk until the dog tugged me home.
That afternoon I crossed the street.
The woman who answered looked kind and a little tired. Soft brown hair in a messy knot, smile ready before she even knew why I was there.
“Hi… I’m Calla, from across the street.” My voice shook. “This is going to sound insane, but my daughter keeps seeing a little boy in your window. And yesterday… I think I saw him too.”
Her face softened instantly. “That would be Holden. My nephew. He’s staying with us while his mom recovers in the hospital. He’s eight.”
Eight.
The same age Felix would always be.
She must have seen something in my expression because her voice dropped. “You okay?”
I told her. Not everything; just enough. Car accident. One month. Little sister who insisted her brother was waving from their window.
Esther listened without flinching, then rested a hand on my arm.
“Holden’s shy,” she said gently. “He spends hours drawing by that window. He told me there’s a little girl across the street who waves at him. He thought she might want to be friends.”
Friends.
That night Hazen looked out the window again and smiled, really smiled, for the first time in weeks.
“He’s not waving anymore, Mommy. He’s drawing.”
I pulled her close. “Maybe he’s drawing something for you.”
The next morning we crossed the street together.
Holden was on the porch with a sketchbook. He looked up when he saw us, cheeks pink, eyes curious and kind.
Hazen marched right up to him. “Hi. I’m Hazen. Do you like dinosaurs?”
He nodded, suddenly shy. “Yeah.”
Within minutes they were sitting on the grass trading crayon colors and arguing happily about whether stegosaurus or triceratops would win in a fight.
Esther and I watched from the steps.
“They’ll be okay,” she said quietly.
I believed her.
That evening Hazen fell asleep clutching a picture Holden had drawn: two stick-figure kids holding hands beneath a bright yellow sun, with a third, slightly translucent figure smiling down from above.
She didn’t say it was Felix. She didn’t have to.
Some losses never stop hurting, but sometimes the universe, in its strange and gentle way, sends someone who looks a little like what we’ve lost, just long enough for the light to creep back in.
Across the street, the pale-yellow house no longer felt haunted.
It felt like the place where healing had quietly moved in, bringing crayons, shy smiles, and the soft, certain knowledge that love never really leaves.
It just finds new windows to wave from.