Free Just One Thing by Holly Jacobs

around.
    I had never used that word. Never.
    I’d never even thought it.
    Oh, I’d heard it. I was a teacher, so I was familiar with the sound of it. But it wasn’t part of my personal lexicon.
    Sam grabbed my arm and I tried to pull away, but he held tight and spun me. “I’m sorry.”
    “That wasn’t how I lost him. Lee and I divorced . . .”
    I hadn’t planned to say more, even before Sam pissed me off. But the story came tumbling out.

    The twins graduated from college. Thankfully their ceremonies weren’t the same weekend. Lexie was also thankful that she and Lee figured out how to coexist with the kids.
    Their divorce hadn’t just been amicable. It had been emotionless. Painless.
    They’d both simply had enough and walked away.
    It was as if they’d used up all their pain at Gracie’s funeral and didn’t have any left to mourn the death of their marriage.
    Lexie had heard that losing a child was the worst kind of pain and she didn’t doubt it. She felt as if someone had cut off a limb and she was suffering from phantom pains, thinking her arm was still there, even when it was long gone.
    Some mornings, she woke up and forgot. Forgot that Lee had moved out. Forgot that her two Cons were away at college. Forgot that Gracie was dead.
    The forgetting only lasted a few moments, but when she remembered, the pain hit her anew and she almost buckled under the weight of it.
    Last weekend, at Connie’s graduation, they’d sat as if they were a family. Lexie, Conner, then Lee. This week, the same thing, except it was Connie sitting in between them and Conner graduating.
    As they sat in the huge theater the school had rented for its graduation, Lexie realized the seat next to hers was empty. For a moment—just the smallest of moments—she closed her eyes and pretended Gracie was there, sitting next to them at Conner’s graduation. She reached over and placed her hand on the armrest that separated the seats, but instead of Gracie’s hand, she just felt wood.
    Gracie should have been sitting there, watching her brother graduate and talking about her own graduation the next year.
    And even after years, the pain and anger hit her again.
    Lee looked over Connie’s shoulders and mouthed the word, “Gracie?”
    Lexie nodded and felt the tears welling in her eyes.
    Connie looked over and took her hand. “Mom, you don’t have to cry. Dork-Boy got a job. He won’t be moving in with you or dad and sponging off you. And to be honest, if the whole work thing doesn’t work for him, I told him he could come live in my basement.”
    She laughed and allowed Connie to think that’s what it was. It was easier that way.
    They sat through the graduation.
    Lexie had sat through them in the past for friends, but she’d never found much to recommend graduation ceremonies.Pompous guest speakers who went on and on about the future the graduates had in front of them, when all the graduates wanted to do was revel in the here and now—in the fact they’d accomplished this goal and had earned their diplomas.
    Two hours of listening to endless names of people she didn’t know in order to enjoy that one moment that belonged to her . . . to her friend or her child.
    They called Conner’s name and handed her son his diploma.
    Lexie looked at Lee again, and smiled. He smiled back and she knew he understood what she was saying without words. Congratulations . They might have screwed up many things, but they’d done this right. They’d parented these two children into the start of successful adulthoods.
    Then, just like that, it was done. The ceremony ended and Lexie reveled in the knowledge that somehow, despite everything, they’d managed to raise two amazing people. There would always be a hole in their lives where Gracie would live, but still, they’d managed it.
    They were connected.
    “Excuse me,” Lexie said to a passing parent. “Would you take a picture of the four of us?”
    “Sure.”
    “Camera karma?” Lee