Chapter 1 1

POV Katherine Ellis

Andrew set the knife down on his plate and stared at me.

Sometimes I wondered where the sweet gaze that made me fall in love had gone, that charming smile that used to calm me—it wasn’t there anymore.

“My boss asked me to talk to you,” he said, looking away the moment our eyes met. “She needs someone to prepare her son for the admission exam. I told her you could do it.”

My stomach tightened. How dare he.

“I already told you I don’t want to teach again,” I said quietly.

“And I’m telling you,” he shot back, “that you should think about it.”

There was something new in his voice—a mix of command and irritation. I noticed it as I sat there, pushing aside the mashed potatoes that had gone cold.

Meals were like this now… cold, just like everything between us.

How much longer could it go on? I didn’t know.

“Andrew, don’t pressure me.”

“I’m not pressuring you, Katherine. I’m talking about an opportunity.”

His hand hit the table, not hard, but enough to break the quiet.

“Two years have passed. Two years since Ethan…” He paused, and the silence cut through me until I could barely breathe.

“You can’t go on like this.”

I looked up.

“Like what?”

“Locked away. Eating almost nothing. Sleeping all day. Pretending to be alive when you’re not.”

The tears came without permission. They always did when he said my son’s name.

It still hurt like the first day, and every time I looked at my empty arms, it hurt even more.

“You have no idea how it feels,” I said, trembling.

“Of course I do,” he interrupted. “He was my son, too. But I can’t stop my life because you decided to die with him. Someone has to keep this house standing. If I sat down to cry with you, who would pay the bills? Who?! You have the damn privilege to fall apart, to forget everything—I don’t. I have responsibilities. Unlike you, who only lives in bed.”

His words hit me one after another, endless reproaches I already knew by heart. And still, somehow, they pushed me, forced me to gather the strength I needed to survive the pain without letting it paralyze me.

I stayed motionless. The clinking of cutlery was replaced by the sound of my uneven breathing.

“You’re insensitive,” I sobbed.

“I’m a tired man, Katherine. Tired of coming home every day and finding it turned into a mausoleum. Tired of every conversation ending in tears. And tired of seeing you… like this. I don’t have a wife anymore. I don’t have a son. I don’t have you. How long has it been since we had sex? I don’t even remember your body anymore. I can’t remember what your naked breasts look like. You’ve forgotten about me.”

I covered my face with my hands. I didn’t want him to see me cry.

He went on, calm but sharp:

“My boss thinks highly of you. If you agree to help that boy, it would do you good. And it would do me good, too, if she owed me a favor.”

“A favor?” I managed between sobs.

“Yes. A favor, Katherine. Not everything in life revolves around your pain. You know little Elliot—we once went to one of his birthdays, or something like that. I can’t believe he’s already going to college. This could be good for me at work. Think about it one more time, and tomorrow give me your answer. If you won’t do it for yourself—to get out of this routine and these four walls—then do it for me, the one still paying for everything. You owe me that.”

Then he folded his napkin neatly, stood up from the table, and left.

I stayed there, staring at the plate. I couldn’t tell if what I felt was anger or shame. Maybe both.

Since Ethan’s death, every word from him reminded me how far apart we’d drifted. We used to be normal—work, dinners, conversations about nothing. Then came the accident. Then the silence.

I took a deep breath and, for a second, thought maybe he was right.

Two years without going out.

Two years without teaching, without seeing anyone.

Two years living in a house that smelled of the memory of a child who was no longer here.

But as soon as I thought it, the pain returned.

“I can’t,” I whispered.

Andrew appeared again in the doorway. I didn’t know how long he’d been watching me.

“I’ve been patient, Kate. More than you can imagine. But if you’re not capable of getting up and doing something with your life…” his voice dropped, cold and steady, “…then I’ll consider divorce.”

I froze.

Divorce?

I felt the blood drain from my body. I stood so fast that the chair fell back.

He didn’t move. He just looked at me, waiting for an answer.

But I said nothing.

I crossed the hallway, went upstairs, and shut the bedroom door.

The crying came all at once, uncontrollable.

I threw myself onto the bed, pressing the pillow against my face until I could barely breathe.

Andrew had always been practical, even in grief. I admired that once.

When people came with condolences, he arranged the funeral, handled the paperwork, kept everything together.

He never cried in front of me.

He said someone had to be strong.

And I believed him.

But now it wasn’t strength. It was contempt.

I couldn’t understand how he could talk about Ethan as if it were a stage overcome, a disease I should’ve cured by now.

Wasn’t he his father?

Didn’t he dream too of the boy who would never turn six?

I looked at the ceiling. There was a new crack—small, almost invisible. In two years, nothing in this house had changed. The same clock. The same photos. The same silences.

I remembered the last time I left the house: the funeral.

The smell of wet grass. The dirt falling over the tiny coffin. The feeling that nothing—absolutely nothing—would ever matter again.

After that, I quit my job, my friends, the world outside.

Sometimes I heard children laughing on the street and closed the windows.

I hated the sound.

I hated the mothers who kept walking.

I lived in that contradiction.

The man I loved had become a stranger.

The son I loved had left me a void that not even air could fill.

I thought about the job. About that boy who needed help to get into college.

About the woman I used to be—the teacher who spoke about literature with passion, who believed words could still change something.

That woman was gone. But maybe Andrew was right.

How much longer could this version of me survive, the one who only knew how to cry?

I didn’t want him to leave me too.

I knew a divorce would destroy what was left of me.

So I had to do something.

I just didn’t know what.

Or if I was ready.

Ready to start over, to face life without my son.

This world meant nothing without him.