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For the next several weeks, I existed in survival mode. I drifted between friends’ couches and dilapidated motels, trying to keep a newborn warm and fed while my own spirit was breaking. The turning point came on a rainy afternoon when a car splashed a puddle over us as I walked from a grocery store. The driver, a young woman named Harper, jumped out to apologize, but stopped mid-sentence when she saw my face. I was shattered, and the story poured out of me right there on the sidewalk. Harper, as it turned out, was a lawyer who had experienced a similar betrayal after her own father’s death. She looked at me with a fierce, professional empathy and said the words I hadn’t heard since Caleb died: “I can help you.”
A few days later, Deborah called. Her voice had undergone a miraculous transformation, sounding sweet, warm, and maternal. She invited me to dinner, claiming she wanted us to be “family” again. Despite my intuition, a desperate part of me hoped she had finally seen Caleb’s eyes in Noah’s face. The dinner was a surreal performance of domestic harmony until the masks slipped.
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