Chapter 478: Same Time Next Year

Franz had cleared the whole morning without needing to be reminded twice, the household schedule rearranged around a single unmarked block on the calendar that only the adults in the house understood the shape of. Today would have been Layla’s birthday, and he’d handled the flowers himself instead of leaving it to anyone else, white lilies for her and a bottle of the whiskey Alex used to keep in his desk drawer, plus a single cupcake with one unlit candle sitting in a box on the passenger seat, small enough not to feel like a production and specific enough that nobody would mistake it for anything but what it was.

Lily had decided two days ago, after a long, private conversation with Leo that neither of them fully repeated to anyone. They wanted to bring a photograph this year instead of a drawing, the newest family portrait, the one with Lexx finally included in it.

"He should meet them too," Lily said, holding the frame carefully on the drive over, Leo watching the road instead of the photograph he already knew by heart. "Even if it’s just like this."

Arianne twisted around from the front seat to check on Lexx, strapped into his car seat and gnawing on his own fist, entirely unaware of where they were headed or why the car had gone so much calmer than usual. "He’s coming with us today. I think that’s right."

The mausoleum sat at the far edge of the cemetery grounds, pale stone and a single stained-glass window that threw color across the floor in the late morning light, and the family walked the last stretch together, nobody rushing anyone else along.

Franz stopped a few feet back once they reached the entrance, Lexx settled against his shoulder, giving Arianne the space she always took for herself first. She knelt and set the lilies down beside Layla’s engraved name, her hand resting flat against the stone for longer than it took to arrange them.

"Happy birthday," she said, low enough that only Layla could have heard it if hearing were still a thing she did. "I hope wherever you are, it’s kinder to you than most of the years you had here. Your children are extraordinary. I think you’d be proud of who they’re becoming, and I wanted you to hear that today specifically, not just whenever it occurred to me."

She stood after a moment and stepped back, making room for the twins the way Franz had made room for her, setting the cupcake down beside the flowers and lighting the single candle before she moved.

Lily set the frame against the base of the stone, angling it so the glass wouldn’t catch a glare. "Happy birthday, Mom." She touched the edge of the photograph once, like straightening something that was already straight. "This is us now. Leo and me, and Mommy Aria, and Uncle Franz, and Lexx. I remember your kitchen smelled like cinnamon on Sundays. I still think about that sometimes."

"I remember the yellow chair," Leo said, crouching beside her. "And Mom used to hum. Really bad. Off-key bad."

"I didn’t know that one." Lily looked at him.

"I never told anyone." Leo shrugged. "I just remembered it right now."

"What else do you remember that I don’t?"

Leo thought about it, tracing one finger along the edge of the stone. "She let me stand on a chair and stir the pot. I always spilled some. Dad never got mad about the mess."

"That’s so Dad." Lily grinned, the first real one since they’d arrived. "He never got mad about messes."

"Except the time I lost his car keys."

"That doesn’t count. You lost them for a whole week."

Franz crossed the last few feet once the twins had settled into their own conversation, Lexx awake and curious against his shoulder, small fists opening and closing at nothing in particular. He crouched beside Arianne without a word, resting his free hand against the stone where his brother’s name was carved, and nobody spoke again until he did.

"You’d have liked him," Franz said finally, tilting Lexx a little so his brother’s name sat in view, though the baby’s attention had already drifted to the stained glass instead. "He’s got Arianne’s stubbornness already. Cries exactly once when he doesn’t get his way, then moves on like it never happened. You’d have found that hilarious."

Lexx reached one small hand toward the carved letters, missing them by a foot and grabbing at air instead, and Leo laughed for the first time since they’d arrived, a short, surprised sound that seemed to catch him off guard as much as anyone else.

"He’s trying to introduce himself," Leo said. "In baby language."

"Yeah, that’s him," Lily said, and something in her face had eased since the drive over, the weight she’d been carrying since the conversation with Arianne finally finding somewhere to set itself down.

"We should blow it out together," Leo said, nodding at the candle still burning on the cupcake. "So it counts for all of us."

The three of them leaned in at once, Lexx included with Franz’s hand steadying the back of his head, and the flame went out on the first try.

"Happy birthday, Mom," Lily said again, softer this time, like she wanted the words to land somewhere private instead of out loud.

They stayed another quarter hour, the twins trading memories back and forth in the easy, unhurried way people did when grief had finally stopped being the only thing left to say about someone, and Arianne watched them do it without interrupting, letting the moment belong entirely to the two of them.

On the walk back to the car, Lily slipped her hand into Arianne’s without being asked, and Leo did the same on Franz’s side, Lexx babbling something formless at the passing trees like he had opinions about all of it.

"Same time next year?" Lily asked, once they’d all settled back into the car.

"Same time next year," Arianne said. "Whatever you two decide to bring."

"Maybe next time Lexx can pick something himself," Leo said. "Once he can actually talk."

"He already has opinions about everything," Franz said, glancing at his son in the rearview mirror. "He just can’t tell us what they are yet."

The drive home stayed calm in the good way, the kind that didn’t need filling, and by the time they pulled into the driveway, Lily had already started narrating the photograph out loud to Lexx, explaining who everyone in it was as if he might remember the lesson for later.