This is an original short story. Names, characters, and events are fictional.
Part 1: The Man I Thought Had Chosen All of Us
I used to believe the hardest thing I would ever survive had already happened to me. When my sister died, grief didn’t give me the luxury of time to collapse. There were children who still needed breakfast, clean clothes, permission slips signed, nightmares soothed, and someone to promise them that tomorrow would still come regardless.
I already had my son, Harry. Then Selena and Mika became mine to raise too. One day I was a mother of one. The next, I was responsible for three young lives that had already learned, far too early, how quickly the world could rearrange itself without warning.
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