It was absurd, really, because the babies were far too young for it. But he needed something to make with his hands, something that transformed grief into lumber and bolts instead of broken teeth and broken men.
He spent three weekends building it in the backyard oak.
Cedar planks. Green trim. A small round window. Safe railings. Too sturdy for ordinary childhood recklessness because Fletch built things the way he loved people—with excess reinforcement.
On the little door, he installed a carved wooden plaque.
The Collie House.
When he showed Dorothy the finished structure, she stood beneath the tree and laughed through tears.
“She’d say the paint on the trim is uneven,” Fletch muttered.
“She’d be right,” Dorothy said.
He smiled then, the first unguarded smile she had seen on him in months.
Seasons turned. Sleep improved. Bottles became pureed peaches. First smiles gave way to rolling attempts, then crawling intentions.
The house changed with them.
Dorothy repainted the master bedroom in the soft yellow Colleen loved. She replanted the garden with the help of Colleen’s gardening journal, which turned out to include stern handwritten notes like never plant tomatoes where the squirrels can see your weakness. The rosemary survived the winter. Dorothy took that personally, as encouragement.
At night, after the babies slept, Dorothy often sat in the nursery rocking chair between the three cribs and reread Colleen’s letters.
Not every night.
Some nights there was no time. Some nights there was only exhaustion and the shallow sleep of a woman who knew at least one child would wake before dawn.
But often enough.
She began telling the babies stories about their mother long before they could understand words.
“Your mother hated parallel parking,” she told Margot one night.
“Your mother once cried because a rescue dog in a commercial looked lonely,” she told Bridget.
“Your mother believed all furniture looked better after sanding and a terrible decision from Pinterest,” she told Theodore.
By the time the babies turned one, the stories had become ritual.
Three candles on one cake.
Three pairs of hands smashing frosting.
Three highchairs arranged in a row while Jolene took too many photos and Fletch pretended he did not tear up when Theodore clapped for himself.
After everyone left that night, Dorothy sat on the kitchen floor amid wrapping paper and paper plates and looked around the house.