A Difficult Goodbye, a Sudden Change, and an Unexpected Resolution

When my father died, I thought grief would be the hardest thing I’d face. I was wrong. Losing him so suddenly felt like the ground vanished beneath my feet—I was only nineteen, still figuring out adulthood, still leaning on him in ways I hadn’t even noticed.

After my mother passed years earlier, he had been my constant: making breakfasts he barely knew how to cook, leaving notes, loving me in quiet, steady ways. When Cheryl entered our lives, I sensed the distance immediately. She was polite but cold, kind only when it suited her.

I endured it for my father’s sake, believing love required patience. But after his funeral, her patience vanished. She moved through the house like it already belonged to her, erasing traces of him—and of me.

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