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The morning the man in the Mercedes arrived, my house was already in full collapse.
Not the dramatic kind. The ordinary kind. The kind that comes with four children, one parent, and not quite enough time or energy to keep up with everything that needs fixing.
I was standing at the kitchen sink with a wrench in one hand, trying to convince the drain to unclog, while my other arm balanced a lunchbox that refused to stay closed. Somewhere behind me, cereal was spilling, a chair scraped loudly across the floor, and a small voice announced, with great pride, that syrup made everything better.
It was chaos. Familiar chaos. The kind I had learned to navigate since my wife died.
So when I heard the knock at the door, firm and deliberate, it felt completely out of place.
Life After Loss
My name is Lucas. I am forty-two years old, a widower, and the sole parent of four children.
Two years earlier, my wife, Emma, was still here. Still laughing at our cluttered kitchen. Still teasing me about my habit of fixing things halfway and promising to finish later. She had been tired then, but we both blamed it on the baby. Grace had just been born, and exhaustion felt normal.
It turned out to be something far more serious.
