Chapter 3 - CAROLINE
Caroline died when Elsie was two years and two months old.
Ovarian cancer.
Diagnosed late.
Treated aggressively.
Twelve months from first symptom to funeral.
Elsie remembered fragments.
Caroline’s perfume.
A yellow sweater.
Her voice singing one particular bedtime song.
The blue mug she used for tea.
Not enough to carry a mother alone.
So I carried the rest.
Photographs.
Stories.
Videos.
Recipes.
One recording of Caroline reading Goodnight Moon when she was too tired to finish without coughing.
I did not build a shrine.
At least I tried not to.
One photograph remained in Elsie’s room.
One downstairs.
The rest in albums.
Caroline had left letters for later birthdays.
Those stayed sealed.
She had also left me a letter.
One paragraph mattered after the portrait incident.
Dominic,
Do not let anybody treat adoption like a footnote to Elsie’s place in our family. Biology explains how people arrive. It does not get to grade who stays.
I had read that sentence after the funeral.
May you like
Then put it away.
I never expected my sixty-four-year-old aunt to make it relevant.
