I didn’t move.
The fawn stayed close to its mother, its legs still thin and awkward.
It couldn’t have been very old.
The doe looked at me through the screen.
Then she turned back toward Tom’s chair.
For a few seconds, nothing happened.
No magical moment.
No dramatic gesture.
She simply lowered her head beside the chair and stood there.
Then she walked toward the patch of grass beside the porch.
The fawn followed.
That was when I noticed what she was doing.
She was taking the same path she used to take when Tom was alive.
Across the grass.
Past the birdbath.
Around the old maple.
Then back toward the trees.
Only this time, the little one followed every step.
I started crying.
Not because I believed she understood death the way we do.
I don’t know what she understood.
Maybe she remembered the quiet man who sat in the same place every morning.
Maybe the empty chair had simply become part of her routine.
Maybe she had noticed his absence.
I’ll never know.
But I remembered something Tom had said the first week she started visiting.
I’d asked why he never tried to get closer.
He looked at me like I’d asked the dumbest question in the world.
“Because if she trusts this yard enough to bring a baby through here someday, that’s enough.”
I’d forgotten all about it.
Until that morning.
The doe reached the edge of the woods.
The fawn disappeared between the trees first.
She didn’t.
She stopped.
Turned around.
And looked back toward the porch.
I put my hand on the back of Tom’s chair.
“Yeah,” I whispered.
“I saw her.”
Then she disappeared too.
I left the chair outside all summer.
The doe didn’t come every morning anymore.
Sometimes I wouldn’t see her for a week.
Then she’d appear near the maple with the fawn, who got bigger every time.
I never fed them.
Tom would’ve given me a lecture.
I kept the birdbath filled.
I kept my distance.
And every morning at 6:30, I still took my coffee outside.
For the first few weeks, I sat in a different chair.
Then one morning I finally sat in his.
It hurt.
But not in the same way the empty chair had.
Later that summer, the doe appeared at the tree line.
She looked toward the porch.
I was sitting where Tom used to sit.
She went back to eating.
And strangely, that was the morning the backyard finally felt peaceful again.
I still don’t know whether that deer ever understood that Tom was gone.
But I know she remembered where she had once felt safe.
And somehow, that was enough for me.
Fictional story created with the assistance of artificial intelligence during the writing process.
