Free Now You See Me by Kris Fletcher

once again, as always happened, Lyddie looked from the tombstone to her children and wondered what she was supposed to say next.
    She’d read all the books on helping kids deal with grief. But in real life, standing with the hot sun beating down on them and the murmurs of other visitors in the background, none of those well-meaning suggestions ever sounded helpful. Especially when the kids seemed more bored than sad.
    “Are we done yet?” Tish asked.
    “No.” Lyddie had no idea what they should do, but she knew Glenn deserved more than three minutes of awkward silence.
    “But we gave him the flowers. And the sandwiches.”
    “I know, sweetie.”
    Tish dropped Lyddie’s hand to twist the sash of her pink eyelet sundress. “Why do we give him sandwiches, anyway? He can’t eat ’em.”
    “Tish!” Sara had the adolescent eye-roll mastered.
    Ben spoke up. “The ancient Egyptians used to leave food with the mummies. They thought it would be needed in the afterlife. And they left money and pets, and sometimes slaves were even—”
    “Enough, Ben.” Lyddie could already imagine the nightmares Tish would conjure up that night. “Why don’t you tell Tish about the peanut butter sandwiches?”
    Ben squinted behind his glasses. He opened his mouth, then closed it. “Uh, well...”
    No. This couldn’t be happening. Ben had the best memory of any of them. Lyddie refused to believe he could have forgotten.
    Sara jumped in. “Daddy ate a peanut butter sandwich every day, Tish. With fluff and blackberry jam.”
    He always said I was the jam and he was the fluff, and the peanut butter was the love.
    She reached for Tish’s hand once again, gave it a little squeeze and looked at Ben. “Did you really forget, bud?”
    His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed once, twice. “I guess I did. Sorry, Mom.”
    “Don’t apologize, honey, you didn’t do anything wrong. I just wish... What do you remember?”
    Ben shrugged. “Um...well, stuff. He read me stories at bedtime. And he taught me how to skate. That was fun.”
    “Sara? Can you tell Tish a story or two about your dad?”
    Sara frowned and twisted the daughter’s ring Lyddie had given her on her thirteenth birthday. “Okay. Well, I remember one time when we were in church, and I was bored, and you were working in the nursery, and he took a five-dollar bill from his pocket and folded it so it looked like a man’s shirt. That was cool.” She frowned. “Then Ben yanked it away from me and it ripped.”
    “Did not.”
    “You did, too.”
    “I did—” He stopped, flushed. “Maybe I did. I don’t remember.”
    “It’s okay,” Sara said after a moment’s silence. “You might not have grabbed it. I tell myself that story a lot. So I might have changed it a bit.”
    “Why do you tell yourself the story, Sara?” Lyddie had planned to stay quiet and let the kids lead the way, but she had the feeling this was important.
    “Because...well... Promise you won’t get mad?”
    Oh, God.
    “Promise.”
    “Okay. Well. Sometimes, I kind of... It’s hard to remember him. You know?”
    “Because it makes you sad?”
    “No.” Sara lifted her head, looked directly at Lyddie with the wide-set eyes she’d inherited from her father. “I mean, I can’t remember. Not what he was really like. Just the stories I tell myself.”
    Lyddie had the same feeling she’d had the year she mistakenly wore spike heels to the cemetery: like she was sinking into something better left untouched, but she had no choice because she was already stuck.
    “You really can’t remember him? But you were almost ten. I thought—I hoped you were old enough...”
    “I remember some stuff. And sometimes I get this feeling, like I’m doing a Daddy thing, but I can’t really say why. It’s just like I said. It’s all stories now that I tell myself to make me remember.” She looked down again. “And sometimes I’m not even sure if it’s really something that happened at all or if it’s