22 December

Something felt odd about that morning from the moment Bridgette had woken up, but she hadn’t been able to place what was so strange about it until she’d found her sister sitting alone, staring blankly out into the distance. Normally when she’d finished up everything she wanted to get done after waking up, she’d meet up with her and one or both of their parents, but for it to be Aimee and only Aimee there? There was clearly something going on that she wasn’t aware of.

“You haven’t seen either of our parents, have you?” she asked, after she’d let her sister know that she was the one approaching her. “This isn’t usually how I find you.”

“The only thing I’ve seen in weeks is night and day, you know this.” Laughing at her sister’s reference to sight (and physically unable to see the way Bridgette had tensed up momentarily when she’d realized her mistake in word choice), Aimee tilted her head back and towards where she knew her sister was standing over her. “But no, I don’t know where either of them are, which is really weird. They’re both so good about telling me where they’re going, so I don’t get any funny ideas and try chasing them down to make sure they’re fine.”

“Interesting, very interesting…” Sitting down next to her sister so that she didn’t feel like she was talking down to her, Bridgette placed a hand on one of Aimee’s knees, so that she could have some contact with her even if it wasn’t visual. “Neither of them let me know where they are either, which isn’t as big of a deal as it is for you because I can go searching for them if I have to.”

A smile lit up Aimee’s face, her hands scrambling to grab her sister’s. “Ooh, we can go together! Between us we have two eyes and zero weapons on us right now, but if they’re in trouble we can find them and save them!”

“I have a feeling they’re not in trouble, I just can’t figure out why that is.” It was nice to hear her sister so excited for something, even if it was rather misguided, but even with that excitement in mind Bridgette knew that they needed to figure out what was going on with their parents, in a way that didn’t involve possibly running headfirst into danger. “I do suppose we could go searching for them, there’s bound to be someone who’s seen them around today.”

Thinking for a second of all the possibilities as for what could happen, Aimee nodded eagerly at what had been suggested. “I could use the time out in the daylight, I kinda miss being able to walk around outside all the time and go on adventures.” She paused, tilting her head to the side as another thought crossed her mind. “This is like an adventure though, isn’t it? We’re going to get to do something together, to save our parents!”

“They don’t need saving, I don’t think, so stop jumping to that conclusion. They’re probably out spending time together before they have to do something that keeps them away for a little bit.” Bridgette was also thinking about possibilities as to what was going on, but her mind was staying a lot more down-to-earth than her sister’s was. “Besides, knowing how Mum can be, she probably decided she wanted to spend today doing something that involves her and Dad but not us.”

“I guess that makes sense…” Aimee sounded dejected that things didn’t seem to be as adventurous as they had initially been, but she didn’t let it get to her too much, perking right back up when she heard her sister getting back to her feet. “So are we really doing this? We’re going to go try and find them, even though we don’t know where they might be?”

“Think about it, Aimee, it’s probably really obvious where they are.” Helping her sister to her feet before they both got ready to go out, Bridgette didn’t say anything more on the matter until they were heading out into the town, neither of them armed but feeling safe due to the fact that one of them was blind and the other was guiding her. As they walked, that was when she started explaining what she’d come up with for them to do while they were out: “I already said that this has to be because Mum wanted to go out with Dad and not us, and there’s not many places I can think of that they’d go together and not take us.”

“You’re not saying they’ve gone somewhere dangerous, are you?” Aimee innocently asked, her voice getting smaller with every word. “That’s somewhere they wouldn’t take us, since they wouldn’t want us getting hurt.”

Bridgette shook her head. “No, and you really need to work on jumping to all those negative conclusions. I’m saying that they have to be out doing something *for* us. You know, like shopping or something? Like good parents do?” She waited for a response from her sister, but when she looked back towards her she saw that Aimee had tilted her face up towards the sky, taking in the light while she could. “O…kay, I don’t think you’re even listening to me right now, so why should I bother explaining myself?”

There was still no response given, despite Aimee normally retorting that she was listening and that she did want to hear the explanation, which Bridgette found to be very odd but she wasn’t going to question it. This was the first time in a while they’d gone out together, and the last time they had Aimee had still been able to see at least a little bit, so this might have been the new normal for their outdoor excursions. As they got closer to the crowd of people near some shops in town, that was when Aimee acknowledged that she’d been spoken to earlier, laughing as she righted her head and tried acting like a normal member of society. “I guess you think they’re shopping somewhere around here, don’t you?”

“I’m guessing so, yes. Where else would they be?” Even with her confidence in having figured out the mystery already, Bridgette was left realizing that neither of her parents were in any of the little shops they’d gone to, and she didn’t have any other leads or guesses. Rather than show defeat in how she acted, she chose to pretend like she had another idea to act on as they headed back towards home to try a second option, but before they could leave the marketplace she found herself stopping in her tracks, her eyes having caught a chalkboard with the day’s date written on it.

The strangeness of the day sank in fully when she saw it spelled out before her eyes, the date an average day to everyone else in the world but one of the more meaningful ones for the people in her family. “How did I manage to forget that?” she asked under her breath, mentally scolding herself for thinking that she needed to go search for her parents just because she hadn’t been able to find them. “Aimee, how did *we* manage to forget what today is? We never forget this!”

“I don’t know what day it is, sorry Bridgette.” Again Aimee’s voice sounded small, as she was confronted with a concept that she wasn’t able to grapple with anymore. “You’re going to tell me though, aren’t you?”

“It’s the twenty-second of December, and we both know what that means.” There wasn’t any need to elaborate further on that statement, as the sharp breath and excited squeal that Aimee gave was proof enough that she did, in fact, know what it meant. “Why are we out wasting our time trying to find them when we should be at home trying to make things perfect for when they come back?”

“Because you didn’t know it was their anniversary until right now, I’d guess.” There was amusement as she spoke, as evidenced by how it was audibly clear that Aimee was trying to restrain herself from squealing once more. “We have to get home and make sure we do everything we can for them! I want to know we did something good for them today!”

They still hadn’t moved from when Bridgette had seen the sign with the day’s date, and she turned to look towards one of the shops they’d skipped over. “I have a bit of an idea for what we can do for them, but you’re going to have to promise me you’re not going to make this difficult if we do it.”

“Depends on what it is, there’s not much a blind girl can really do.”

“It involves remembering something that was rather dear to us when we were little, which I think you can do, right?” She was putting a lot of faith in her little sister on this, but Aimee always tried to make Bridgette proud, no matter what they were doing, and so after the agreement was made that she’d try her best with what she was being asked, they headed to the little fabric shop to collect some things before going home to get to work.

Their time that day, after getting back to where they were living and finding it exactly as it was when they’d left, was spent with one of them working tirelessly to piece something together, while the other was recounting what she remembered of the particular thing they were recreating. Crafting to this extent wasn’t something that Bridgette typically did, she was normally one for quick fixes on rips and tears in clothing, but she was going to try her best to make something to mark the occasion that would matter to everyone involved. And Aimee was doing as much as she could to help her sister, answering all the questions she was asked to the best of her ability. Together, they managed to make something that resembled one of the things most prominent in their childhood, although it was by no means a perfect recreation or anywhere really close to it.

In fact, the realization that what she was making didn’t match up as much to the real thing as she’d hoped was a bit crushing to Bridgette, once she held up the very rough and quite small blanket she’d hastily stitched together out of what fabric she could get for cheap in the market. “Almost none of the patches are the same colors, and most of them are too small for me to put anything close to the memories our blanket had on it,” she said with a sigh, setting the blanket down on her lap and reaching for one of the many needles and spools of thread she’d gotten for the task. “But I know there’s one thing I *can* do for this, even if it’s not going to come out right.”

“Then why do it if it’s not going to work?” Aimee asked, reaching towards her sister to try and get a hand on the blanket. “Can I at least check to make sure that it feels right?”

Sighing once more, Bridgette handed the far end of the blanket to Aimee for inspection, while she kept the other end for herself, with the largest square of fabric right in front of her. “I’m going to try because if it does come out even half right, then it’ll be better than nothing at all. I just…I don’t want to mess this up.” She inhaled deeply, looking at her blank fabric and the blue thread in her hand, needled up and ready to go. “I don’t think I can copy Mum’s hand-stitching perfectly, but I do think I can at least match the colors to our names and how they were stitched into the patch.”

“Your name wasn’t in there straight, it was all crooked, kinda like she didn’t think to make enough space for it.” Her hands running along the different patches, catching her fingers on awkward stitches and places where the fabric overlapped oddly, Aimee shook her head before laughing. “And then mine was in there perfectly, although really teeny-tiny compared to the rest of yours! Are you going to copy that?”

“It would only be appropriate for me to do so,” Bridgette replied, not wanting to have to intentionally make such strange decisions but knowing that if she was trying to replicate the blanket that had been constantly added to when she was younger, she was going to have to do things a bit weird. “Here, let me get their names down on it first, those were put at an angle, then I’ll do mine and yours. Sound fair?”

Nodding, Aimee did have one thing she felt needed to be added as a contribution, even as she was running her hands over the rest of the blanket and her memories weren’t exactly being triggered by the lack of detail put on it. “You have to angle them out, my name was always in the corner and I don’t want that to change. I want to be able to touch that square after this and feel the pointy top of my A and the tiny way the rest of the letters were put in after that. You can’t mess this up, it just wouldn’t be right if you did!”

It was a lot resting on Bridgette’s shoulders but she knew that she could manage to make it work out in the end. And she did, because she knew the original square well enough even though it had been a long time since she’d last seen it; she couldn’t exactly replicate how her mother had originally stitched their names into the fabric, but she could match the colors and the spacing, shoving the last few letters of her own name in at an angle sharper than everything else, making sure Aimee’s name was oddly small compared to the rest. She wasn’t nearly as focused of a seamstress as her mother had been, but she also hadn’t thought to start making this until she’d realized what day it was, there was room to be forgiven in inaccuracies, especially since it wasn’t like either of their parents had ever seen the original blanket to begin with.

She spent quite a bit of time admiring her work, then it was time to get started on adding details to the rest of the blanket wherever she could. After turning the blanket around so that Aimee could inspect the name square for herself, she was trying to think of what memories there were that she could fit into the small spaces she’d allotted for them, having to ask her sister a few times if certain changes were allowed to be made for the sake of adding things in to begin with. “If you can make some of the stuff look just like it did on our blanket, I think you should do it,” Aimee told her. “But if you can’t make it work, just leave it plain and maybe someone else will add to it someday.”

“Huh? I don’t want someone adding to this, this blanket’s just my gift for our parents for their anniversary. If someone wants to add to a blanket, they can make their own for that.” Thinking about what they’d both just said for a moment, Bridgette looked at the blanket and looked at the fabric scraps she’d arranged to add a couple decorated patches to the upper squares. “I really hope Mum doesn’t see this and think that she doesn’t have to make one of these someday, hers will be so much better than mine is.”

“You don’t want me thinking what?” The voice came as a surprise to the two girls sitting there in the house, as neither of them had seen nor heard their mother come inside until she was right there. She was standing in front of them, looking confused at what it was they were doing, but before either of them could explain themselves she was crouching down beside them, taking a look at the blanket for herself. “Oh wow, this is really neat! Why are you making a blanket though? Someone you’re training with decide they wanted you to craft them something?”

Trying to hide the fact that she hadn’t been able to get those scraps attached to the blanket at all (although they were arranged to look like a little axe and a little sword, and could be sewn on at any time), Bridgette watched as her mother looked the blanket over, doing just as Aimee had and feeling the stitching for herself. “No, it’s not for anyone outside of the family,” she replied, something that was made obvious when her mother got to the square that had their names in it. “It’s a replica of the blanket our version of you made for us when we were babies. I figured I could try my hand at making it for you.”

“She did a pretty good job of it too,” Aimee added, grinning in the direction she knew her sister was in as a reassurance. “It’s nowhere near as big as the real thing, but it’s still good.”

“That’s really sweet of you, but why did you make this? If you wanted a blanket from your mother, you could have just asked.” Amanda was running her thumb over the stitching of the names, feeling how each letter felt so forced yet at the same time felt like it had been added with love. “I’d drop everything to make one, cancel my classes for a few days to get a good start, all you’d have to do is ask.”

“I wanted to make this for you, though. It felt right.” Biting her tongue as she thought of how best to explain why that was the conclusion she’d come to, Bridgette watched her mother spot the hastily-hidden weapon scraps and narrow her eyes at one of them in particular. “You, er, well, other you had a square on the blanket for yourself, and one for Dad, and you put your weapons on it because you thought it would look nice. At least, that’s how the story goes…”

Softly laughing, Amanda carefully picked up one of the weapons and looked at it, smiling as she did. “You really put a lot of thought into doing this, and you’re clearly working from the heart with all this work. But you didn’t have to do it yourself, you could have told me and I’d have done it for you.”

“She’s making it ‘cause it’s a special anniversary gift!” As soon as she’d said the words, Aimee covered her mouth in shame of having ruined the surprise of what this was really for. “I mean, what am I saying? That’s a silly reason to make a blanket, don’t you think?”

“You’re not fooling anyone with that cover-up,” Bridgette mumbled, looking at her mother and how she seemed even more amused than she had been before. “But yes, I decided that I’d remake the blanket from our childhood as an anniversary present for you and Dad. I didn’t know what else to do, but today’s such an important day that I couldn’t not do something!”

Understanding what she meant, Amanda nodded, before setting the cloth weapon down and grabbing Bridgette into a hug. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t have minded if you hadn’t done anything, and I know your father wouldn’t either. We’ve, uh, been spending today doing things that we didn’t get to do when we got married, like having alone time or even a bit of peace and quiet, and that’s all we could have asked for.”

“That would explain why you weren’t here when we woke up this morning. If you don’t mind me asking, where is it that you two went?” This hadn’t turned out how Bridgette had been expecting it to, but she was being hugged and her mother didn’t seem to be upset with the gift at all, so that was a positive. “If you don’t want to answer that’s fine, I just—“

“You have to tell us, Mum!” Already uncovering her mouth and getting rather loud again, even cutting her sister’s sentence off, Aimee nearly knocked herself backwards with the excitement she’d begun to feel at the idea of hearing a story. “I *have* to know how you made your anniversary a better day than your wedding day!”

“Do I have to tell you both right here, right now?” The girls both nodded, with Aimee adding that she’d be sad if they didn’t get to hear it, but even with that it wasn’t quite enough to get Amanda to start talking. “I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to tell you right now, sorry. But I do know when it will be, don’t worry.”

Breaking herself out of her mother’s hug to look at her suspiciously for a moment, Bridgette then picked the weapon scrap up and placed it on the blanket where she was going to stitch it in. “If you’re not going to tell us now, can I try to finish this before the anniversary’s over? I’d like to say I got it done today.”

“Yes, of course! We have to wait for your father to get back anyway, and who knows how long he’ll be gone.” That would have explained her hesitance on telling them the story, of course she’d want to wait until the other person involved was there to help out with it, but it was noticeable that she seemed a bit dejected at mentioning him being gone.

Bridgette knew that sometimes, it was for the best to just leave things like that alone, but Aimee wasn’t nearly as observant or courteous in conversation, and she was quick to remind everyone of that fact. “Wait, where’d he go? How can you two be off having a good time and yet he’s just gone somewhere?”

“It’s not like he left, he just had to handle something.” Since the hug had been broken, Amanda had to find something else to do with her hands, and that meant moving to the other side of Bridgette so that she was able to grab Aimee and hug her instead. “We were out in the forest, doing things that young people in love do…like carving things into trees, and sitting underneath the trees and watching the birds in the branches, and stuff like that. And then we heard someone screaming for help, and since obviously we had a weapon with us to carve things into the trees, he decided he’d go see what was up so I came back here to see what you two were doing.”

“Does he know to meet you here when he’s done?” Bridgette asked, not looking up from the quick sewing she was doing. “Or do you just think he’s going to come here?”

“He knows I was coming back home, I wasn’t going to make him assume where I was going because he would so get that wrong.” Falling silent after that, Amanda didn’t speak again until she saw Bridgette put her needle down and start admiring her own handiwork, and even then it was only to ask about if she was done adding the scraps. “Do you want me to help with doing that at all? I mean, if your version of me could do it, I should be able to.”

“No, Mum, this isn’t something I’m going to ask you to do for me. I’m making this for you, that means I’m going to do it myself.” Smiling at her mother, half to try and get her to stop offering and half because she was actually pleased at how well she’d done, Bridgette continued looking at the blanket and how, aside from the two weapons and the names, everything was pretty barren. “I just wish I had the time or the space to tell some of the stories our blanket had on it, but this is just too small to get so detailed, and I don’t have months and months of sitting around sewing to spend on it.”

“…Months and months? Are you exaggerating about that?” It was then and only then that Bridgette realized how little of the overall story of her childhood that this version of her mother knew, but she also knew that this wasn’t the time to explain that whole thing. She instead shook her head, letting her know that she was, in fact, not exaggerating. “Oh man, I don’t know how I’d manage to sit somewhere for literal months and work on one blanket. Sounds like maybe your version of me was a lot different than this me, huh?”

“I suppose we could go with that.” The reply was given to keep the conversation from progressing further, as she really did not want to get into the details of what she knew (from being told stories about patches on the original blanket, no less). “I’m just glad I’ve been able to get this much done today, it’s not perfect but it doesn’t have to be when it’s a gift for two people so dear to me.”

Despite her best intentions of getting them onto a different topic that didn’t involve talking extensively about the past, the only things that Amanda wanted to discuss in the time they had to spend was what was on the original blanket and how she’d had the time to put it all on there. To keep the conversation lighthearted and full of great memories, the girls only talked about the patches they’d always loved when they were little, or patches that didn’t directly relate to anything that hurt to think about from their old lives.

They had just about run out of positive stories when their father came to join them, which was perfect timing because the only patch Bridgette could think of before he walked into the house was one of the few that had been added when she was an older child, and she didn’t want to have to explain it to anyone. “It’s about time you got back, I was starting to think that maybe you’d gotten sucked into a trap going to help that guy,” Amanda teasingly said, standing up to greet her husband with open arms. “But guess what? The girls are totally available to come out with us now that you’re here.”

“Come…with you?” Aimee repeated, sounding unsure of having heard her mother correctly. “It’s your anniversary, I’d expect you to abandon us here again and go out for more time alone! You don’t have to include us in today if you don’t want to.”

“We intended on including you in this from the start, so don’t worry, we want to include you.” After taking up the offer of the hug that he’d been given, Green bent down to help Aimee to her feet, the girl falling into him once she was standing. “Hey, what’s with this? You know how to stand up, it’s your eyes that don’t work.”

“Don’t remind her of that, she just wants to be babied.” Before she got up as well, Bridgette rolled the blanket up and tucked it under her arm, hoping that she wouldn’t get asked a million questions about it now that her father was there. “Babied *and* included in things.”

“That’s a fair statement, still doesn’t excuse her doing it but what does?” He hadn’t seemed to notice the blanket at all until after it was rolled up, due to having to keep Aimee steady on her feet as she was still trying to play helpless. “I don’t think someone who needs help standing is going to be able to make it to where we’re going.”

That got Aimee to stop being difficult immediately, her face lighting up as she firmly stood nice and tall. “I can stand up after all! It’s a miracle!” she exclaimed, pretending like she hadn’t been playing around the whole time. “Now if only another one’ll hit me and fix my eyesight, even just a little bit.”

“Now that that’s settled, let’s get going before it starts getting too dark, hm?” Amanda was trying to restore some kind of normalcy to the conversation, despite it being a bit odd that they were all going out somewhere anyway. She clasped her hands together as she continued talking, looking at the two members of the family that were able to look back at her. “It’s already going to be hard getting up there bringing her along, but we can make this work.”

“Getting up there? Where are we going?” Making sure she had that blanket held tightly, Bridgette considered just setting it down and leaving it for another time, but the fact that they were going out together on that special day made her want to present it to both parents at the same time, wherever it was they were headed. When they both remained quiet, instead choosing to lead them out of the house and into the heart of the town, she knew that what they were doing wasn’t something they were going to spoil for them.

The walk to the almost empty part of town was short, but the explanation that they needed to get up on the rooftops to continue going to their destination was a bit odd. “The trick is just listening to exactly what she tells you to do,” Green explained as he and Bridgette both watched Amanda make a charge for the side of one of the buildings, leaping up and grabbing the overhanging part of the roof so that she could pull herself up onto it. “It’s rather weird at first but once you’ve done it a few times it gets easier.”

“Why are you speaking like you’ve done this before?” she asked, before realizing that it was coming off that way because he had, at about the same time that he went to get on the rooftop himself. That left her and Aimee both on the ground, with their parents up waiting for them to make their approach. “Oh gods, they’re asking us to climb buildings and I’m holding their gift and you’re blind! Aimee, what do we do?”

Without missing a beat, Aimee replied, “Uh, you lead me to wherever it is they are and I’m sure they have a plan to get me up there, then you hand the blanket off and get up there yourself, I’m sure. Why are we outside when it’s nearly nighttime? I can barely see any light out right now.”

“That’s…you’re probably right. Here, let’s get you up their first and then I’ll follow.” It wasn’t usual for the younger sister to be the one to know what to do, but it made sense due to her being used to having to force people to accommodate for her blindness. They went to the building’s side, and after some discussion about how to proceed it was decided that getting Aimee up would be easier if she was lifted from down on the ground, rather than someone up on the roof trying to pick her up all on their own. That was fine, as Bridgette was able to pick up her sister easily, and once she was handed off and given the blanket for safekeeping it came time for her to run and lunge for the overhang of the roof, to get herself up there.

She didn’t do it gracefully, but she got her hands on the edge of the roof on her first try and was able to pull herself up entirely without any help, grabbing the blanket from Aimee’s hands the first chance she got. “Are you going to explain why you’ve brought that with you for this? We could have dealt with that back at home,” Amanda said, shaking her head at her daughter before turning to continue leading them on their way.

“I figured it’d be appropriate to address it while we’re out together, since it’s for today, but I didn’t know being out would require so much climbing.” This was why vagueness and secrets were bad ideas in the family, because otherwise weird things like climbing buildings happened without anyone understanding why.

As they continued going upward through the buildings, reaching higher and higher rooftops every couple of minutes, they talked about what had happened earlier in the day for both sets of people, with the parents sharing their story of their time amongst the trees and the girls talking about how they’d spent the day crafting a gift for the occasion. “I’m going to assume that the ‘gift’ you’re talking about is that blanket you’ve got with you. Is it a family thing?” Without looking back at her because he was making sure he and Aimee both weren’t about to fall off the rooftops as they walked, Green continued addressing the gift without actually knowing what it was. “There isn’t much need for you to have done anything for today, just having the two of you in our lives is a good enough gift.”

“Because last year we only had one of you and we had no idea that it could get better than that.” Even though she was further ahead than all three of them, Amanda was still clearly heard as if she was right there, and just hearing her words made Bridgette fill with a bit of pride. She knew the story of how Aimee had wandered in during the wedding and caused issues with that, she’d heard it before a couple times, but to know that her presence was even better than the appearance of her sister during the wedding was pretty great.

She didn’t have time to thank her mother for the comment before something derailed the conversation entirely, which was Aimee nearly walking straight off the rooftop because she hadn’t followed the exact direction her father had tried leading her into. Her scream had been piercing in the silence of the evening around them, and had she not been being held onto by someone she easily would have fallen. Once she was back where she belonged and properly scolded for not listening to directions (by both of her parents, no less), there was no hope in being able to give a thank you for what had been said.

The rest of their trek was solemn as they all grappled with the fact that, had they not been so careful to begin with, Aimee could have walked off the top of a building and gotten seriously hurt from the fall. But that solemnness was erased the moment they got to what seemed to be the top of the highest rooftop connected to all the others, a place that Amanda introduced them to with a dramatic arm flourish. “Welcome to my special place, somewhere near and dear to me that I only show those that I love most.”

“What, they’re only the second and third people you’ve shown up here, aren’t they?” Leading Aimee to somewhere safe she could sit and not potentially fall off the building, Green made sure that he took a seat right next to Amanda once she’d sat down as well, their legs dangling off the side of the roof as they looked out onto the town. “The view from here never changes, even if everything else does. Do you remember the first time we came up here together?”

“I could never forget it, we flirted and laughed and had a great time together, just enjoying each other’s company. So much has happened since then, some good things and some bad, but we’re still here and we’re still happy together.” She was resting her head on his shoulder, more focused on him and what she was saying than she could be on anything else in that moment. “I’m so glad I still have you to share this place with.”

“This is something we’ll always have, don’t worry.” They were moving in closer together, almost as if they weren’t aware that one of their children was watching them (and the other had turned her face towards the setting sun, smiling at it just as she would if she could see her parents being happy together). It wasn’t appropriate to break their moment up, but Bridgette had carried the blanket up there with her for some reason, and she knew that if she let them keep talking and reveling in each other’s presence, she’d never get the chance to gift it to them.

Unrolling it and looking at it one last time, with all its imperfections and issues to being so rushed, she questioned whether or not it was worth sharing with them for a couple seconds, before going through with it. She stepped up behind them, laying the blanket over their backs to give them something holding them together, before she retreated, sitting down next to Aimee, who didn’t notice she’d been approached. “I think, even though they wanted us to come up here with them, we’re being forgotten about,” she admitted, putting a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “It’s okay though, it’s their anniversary and they should be spending it together without us.”

“But we are spending it with them, Mum brought us up to her ‘special place’, didn’t she? Now we can come up here whenever we want!” That was not a suggestion that Aimee should have been making, given that she’d nearly killed herself walking off the building on the way up, but Bridgette knew that her relationship with the concept of death was a bit strange. “I, um, I don’t think I’d want to come back up here, though. If I could see the sights they love so much, maybe it’d be more fun then, but without being able to see…”

“Something tells me that when they’re up here together, it’s not the sights they love.” Still watching their parents move closer to each other, Bridgette gave a small smile in their direction before contently sighing. “Even if they don’t seem to care much for what we made for them, we’re getting to spend this day with them and that’s something we never thought we’d get to do again. Let’s let them have their time together, and we’ll…hm. We’ll spend our time up here admiring the view!”

Aimee’s jaw dropped for a second before she closed her mouth tightly in anger, letting her teeth knock together. “I’m blind, Bridgette! I can’t see anything but the sun, and that’s basically gone now!”

“And that’s why I’ll be making sure I spell out each and everything I see, so you can see it too. That’s what sisters do, they help each other out when they need it, and you definitely need it right now.” So that was what she did for the entire time they were up on the rooftop, talking in detail about everything she could see in the growing darkness, illuminating her blind sister’s life for as long as she possibly could.

She also made sure to keep stealing glances towards her parents, watching as they sat there, feet always dangling, talking about all the wonderful things that had happened to them during their first year of being married. Someday, if a real version of that blanket was made again, this was a scene that would have to be depicted on one of its panels, so that everyone for generations could know the story of the twenty-second of December.