Baxter stood at the door with something soft and yellow in his mouth—one of Lily’s sweaters I thought had been taken by the police for evidence.
Before I could process how he had found it, he ran through a small gap in the fence, glancing back to make sure I followed. He led me into the old, overgrown
lot beside our house, a place I hadn’t stepped into in years. At the entrance of a neglected shed, he stopped and waited. Inside, in a quiet corner,
I found a small nest made of familiar fabrics—Lily’s scarf, her old cardigan, and the extra yellow sweater I had forgotten she owned.
Curled safely among them was a mother cat with three tiny kittens, warm and peaceful in the nest my daughter had lovingly made for them long before the accident.
