Olivia Graham was twenty-two when she started a whirlwind romance with charismatic Jakob overseas.
By age twenty-five, Liv was back home and checking off the widowed box on paperwork. With zero plans, Olivia and beloved dog Snuggles find themselves...
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Flashback
Will stands in front of the waist-length mirror, tying his dad's favorite cerulean blue tie. The one Olivia had given him for Father's Day three years ago.
"Joanie?" His voice is light and sweet as he calls out to her.
"Yes?" She joins him in the bathroom, pausing in the doorway.
"Can you please do me a favor?"
Joanie notices how weary his eyes are as she crosses the room to stand behind him, leaning her chin on his shoulder, her arms giving him a comforting squeeze around his middle. Their eyes meet in the mirror, and Will gives her a loving smile.
His parents have been gone for less than three days. He's been stoic with everything and everyone but her and his sister. He has been so tender with Joanie that her face hurts from grinning at him.
"Can you please check on Liv?" He requests.
She nods, murmuring, "Of course," and stands on her toes to kiss his cheek before heading out of their newly shared bedroom.
Joanie knocks and waits outside Olivia's childhood bedroom door but is met with deafening silence.
"Olivia?" She raps the door with her knuckles once more while putting her ear to the heavy wooden door.
"Come in, JoJo."
Olivia's amethyst bedroom is orderly as if nobody lives there. Liv sits on the ledge of the bay window with her knees drawn up to her chin, chords from The Shins' "Simple Song" float through the air.
She glances over her shoulder at Joanie. "Hi," she says in an undertone before her gaze drifts back outside as the music plays.
"...I know that things can really get rough when you go it alone. Don't go thinking you gotta be tough, to play like a stone..."
