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to explain that his beloved mother was gone forever?
    “To heaven? When is she coming back?” he asked still not understanding the concept.
    “She’s not, honey. But she will always be your guardian angel watching over you,” Bella said pushing a stray hair out of his eye and rubbing his cheek with her thumb.
    “Where was her guardian angel? Why wasn’t her angel watching over her?” he asked with a tear rolling down his cheek. “That’s not fair!”
    “I know it’s not, baby…” Bella said pulling him into her embrace and trying to hold back her own tears. She couldn’t remember ever crying as much as she had cried in the last twelve hours.
    “I want Mommy to come home! Please come home, Mommy!” he kept sobbing and yelling into Bella’s shoulder.
    For over an hour, he sobbed and screamed in the car until he finally tuckered out and fell asleep. When he did, Bella sat there completely still, staring into the black, night sky. She worried that she hadn’t explained it the right way. Did she say it too fast? Did she say the wrong words? Did she scar him for life?
    She quietly slid the seatbelt over him and drove the rest of the way to Lori’s house. As she picked him up and carried him inside to bed, she silently prayed to God that she would be up to the challenge. She hadn’t talked to God much in her life, but this time she was willing to ask for help anywhere she could get it.

Chapter 4
    T he next week was a blur for Bella. Thankfully, the school had taken up contributions for Lori’s funeral arrangements, or else she would never have been able to afford it. She was buried in a small cemetery just outside of town. Poor Ethan had sobbed during the funeral even though Bella had her arm around him and Howie held his little hand. It was the most sorrow Bella had ever seen in one room.
    The small, country church only had a few pews, but they were full of parents and teachers from Ethan’s school. After the service, Howie’s mom had lunch at her house so the kids could play and people could talk about Lori. Bella learned a lot about her sister during that lunch.
    One woman talked about how Lori had volunteered to take the kids on a field trip to the local apple farm earlier in the month. Another woman said her son’s puppy had been hit by a car, and Lori went to the local shelter to get him a new one as a surprise. Story after story showed Bella just how amazing her sister was, and that only made her miss Lori more. The grief was like a dagger in her heart that she couldn’t remove, but more than anything she hoped that she could live up to even a small part of the mother that Lori was to Ethan.
    After the funeral was over, Bella called one of her only real friends back in California, Sonya, and asked her to pack up her things for her. She shipped as many of her clothes as she could, as well as a few mementos. Bella didn’t have all that much anyway. She’d always sent most of her money to Lori and Ethan. If she was honest with herself, she was pretty terrified about how she would financially support her nephew and herself without the money she made from her “movies”.
    Ethan went back to school exactly one week after his mother’s funeral. Bella was surprised at how quickly he bounced back once the initial shock was over, although Sharon and Howie had been critical in that. They gave him the stability that he needed as he transitioned from his mother to Bella.
    Taking on the role of Ethan’s mother was proving to be harder than she imagined. Trying to remember to make his lunch, keep up with his homework, and organize her own life was tougher than she would have ever thought. She was thankful that Sharon had set her up with a job at the local coffee house. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to cover the rent on Lori’s house until she could think of a better plan.
    “Good morning, Bella,” Roslyn said as Bella walked in for her second day at work. Roslyn was an older woman in her sixties who