He gave her a reason to leave.
I picked up Katie.
My mother placed Mia in my other arm.
I sat on the floor.
And let it hit me.
All of it.
The flowers were still downstairs where I dropped them.
The sweaters sat beside me.
At some point, they stopped crying.
Fell asleep against my chest.
I looked at them.
And said it out loud.
“You’re not going anywhere. And neither am I.”
The next three years weren’t easy.
They came one night at a time.
One feeding.
One step.
One adjustment.
My mother stayed.
We figured it out.
And I learned how to live again.
Not the life I had before.
The one I had now.
The prosthetic worked.
But not well enough.
So I started fixing it.
Late nights at the kitchen table.
Sketching.
Testing.
Building something better.
I didn’t talk about it.
I just kept going.
A patent.
A partner.
A company.
Slowly, it became real.
By the time the girls started preschool—
it was working.
Then one day, a file landed on my desk.
A property.
Foreclosed.
Approved for redevelopment.
I read the address once.
Then again.
It was their house.
I drove there calmly.
Because this time—
I wasn’t the one walking in unprepared.
The driveway was full of movers.
Boxes everywhere.
And there they were.
Mara.
Mark.
Different now.
Not confident.
Not in control.
