“I know, but they did that to themselves.”
He was right.
By April, I was in a completely different place mentally.
I paid off my car, started saving for a vacation, and finally signed Lucas up for that soccer team.
Watching him run around on the field, shouting and laughing with the other kids, I felt something I hadn’t felt since before my marriage fell apart.
Pride without pain attached to it.
Every small victory felt like reclaiming a piece of myself.
Then one evening, while I was cooking dinner, my phone buzzed with an unknown number.
Normally, I’d ignore it, but something told me to answer.
“Hello?”
“Felix.”
The voice was faint, shaky.
It was my mom.
I froze.
She sounded older, fragile in a way I hadn’t heard before.
“I know you probably don’t want to talk,” she said. “But I just wanted to say we’ve been thinking about you, about Lucas.”
