This is where the storm took their father. Where we all shattered a little. I wasn’t just repairing a house; I was trying to shield my children from the grief soaked into the very walls. And every day it stayed broken, I felt like I was letting them down.
Since then, I’ve been surviving.
I’m 37, a widow, raising three kids — Calista, 12; Garrick, 10; and little six-year-old Ophelia. Days started before dawn. I worked mornings at the diner, pouring coffee for familiar faces and ignoring the ache in my knees from exhaustion.
Evenings, after dinner, homework, and baths, I stayed up editing documents for distant clients — legal papers, research, manuscripts about lives far from mine.
Every dollar went back into the house. I replaced floorboards Quade had meant to fix next summer. I scrubbed mold until my hands bled.
I tried to rehang wallpaper that curled like old skin, but it never stayed. Still, I kept trying. I just wanted the kids to have a home that didn’t feel like it was crumbling under memories.
I didn’t mind being tired. I didn’t mind thinning hair or a back that screamed when I bent. I didn’t mind crying in the shower to muffle the sound.
I just wanted my children to feel safe again. Like their world hadn’t ended the night the storm took their father.
But one afternoon, while hauling our worn-out couch to the curb, my body finally quit.
I collapsed on the pavement, the sun spinning overhead.
