Grief. Acceptance. Remembrance. A soft drizzle beats down on the fresh face of a newly built house, untouched and unblemished by the outside world, until, leg by leg, arm by arm, and piece by piece, its solitude is broken. Memory seeps into fresh plaster and newly laid floors as the belongings of a family find their places within it. Objects once held, photographs once taken, and furniture once lived around begin to carry the weight of lives that came before. As night falls and a storm gathers, the house becomes a quiet witness to the fragments of a family: their love, their absence, their joys, and the things left unsaid. Through one stormy night, past and present begin to blur, and the boundaries between what has been lost and what remains become increasingly difficult to distinguish. Robert is a short literary novelette about grief, memory, family, and the strange ways we continue to carry the people we have lost. Author's Note I wrote Robert because some people remain present in our lives long after they have left them. This story is about grief, but it is also about love, about the strange persistence of ordinary things, and how a photograph, a piece of furniture, or a familiar room can suddenly bring someone back for a moment. It is, ultimately, a story about remembering.