The Empty Driveway
Chapter 15 - The Empty Driveway
The driveway remained the hardest place.
Every time headlights turned onto the street, Anna’s body reacted before her mind could stop it. For half a second, hope returned like a reflex. Daniel’s truck. Daniel’s boots. Daniel’s duffel bag hitting the porch. Daniel complaining that the lawn looked dramatic without him.
Then the car passed.
Each time, loss arrived new.
Noah noticed.
“You look at cars funny,” he said one night while they watched rain from the front window.
Anna wrapped her cardigan tighter. “I keep thinking…”
“Daddy?”
She nodded.
Noah pressed Private Rocket to the glass. “I do too.”
They stood together, watching the empty driveway.
“Do you want to stop?” Anna asked.
“Stop what?”
“Looking.”
Noah considered.
“No. What if someone else needs our house?”
The answer stunned her.
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “Like the soldiers came. Like Miller came with mugs. Like Lucas came with stories. Maybe doors are for sad people too.”
Anna looked at him, this child who had absorbed grief and somehow returned philosophy.
“Maybe they are.”
The next week, she started leaving the porch light on.
Not because Daniel would come home. Not that way.
Because people did come: widows, soldiers, neighbors, mothers who knew how to sit without fixing, children bringing drawings for Noah.
The doorway became less like a wound.
Not healed.
May you like
But used.
And sometimes used things hurt less than untouched things.
