It still helps,” Dana had both hands over her mouth.
Tom was staring at Brenda as if he had never seen her clearly before.
Brenda herself had gone absolutely still.
Her lips parted once, then closed again.
Mark let the final frame sit for a second after the video ended.
It was a close-up of
Leo leaning into Lily on the couch, his curls spilling over her shoulder while she smiled for the first real time in weeks.
Then the screen went black.
The silence afterward felt huge.
“This,” Mark said at last, “is what you cut.”
Brenda tried to recover.
“Mark, I didn’t know it was all that dramatic.
He’s five.
It was hair.”
Mark didn’t blink.
“No.
It was a promise.
It was comfort.
It was the one thing he thought he could control while his sister was losing things a child should never have to lose.” He reached into the laptop bag and pulled out a clear sandwich bag.
Inside was the single golden curl Leo had clutched in his fist that afternoon.
Mark set it on the coffee table in front of Brenda.
“This is what he came home holding.”
Her face changed then.
Not enough.
But some.
