The day the boys moved in, the house felt both too bright and strangely tense.
Joshua knelt by the car and said, “We’ve got matching pajamas for you.”
That night, the boys turned the bathroom into a swamp, and for the first time in years, laughter echoed through every room.
For three weeks, we lived inside something that felt like borrowed magic—bedtime stories, pancake dinners, LEGO towers, and two small boys slowly learning to reach for us.
About a week after they arrived, I sat quietly at the edge of their beds in the dark, listening to their steady breathing.
They still called me “Miss Hanna.”
Earlier that day, William had cried over a lost toy, and Matthew had refused to eat dinner.
As I pulled the blankets up around them, Matthew’s eyes suddenly opened—wide and uncertain.
“Are you coming back in the morning?” he whispered.
My chest tightened. “Always, sweetheart. I’ll be right here when you wake up.”
William rolled over, clutching his stuffed bear. For the first time, he reached out and took my hand.
But that was also when Joshua began to drift away.
At first, it was small things.
He started coming home late.
“Tough day at work, Hanna,” he would say, avoiding my eyes.
He would sit with us for dinner, smile at the boys—but before dessert, he would slip away into his office.
I found myself cleaning up alone, wiping sticky fingerprints from the fridge while listening to the faint murmur of his phone calls through the door.
When Matthew spilled his juice and William burst into tears, I was the one on the kitchen floor, whispering, “It’s okay, sweetie. I’ve got you.”
Joshua was always gone—“work emergency,” he’d say—or lost behind the glow of his laptop.
One night, after yet another meltdown and peas scattered across the floor, I finally asked him:
“Josh… are you okay?”
He barely looked up. “Just tired. It’s been a long day.”
“Are you… I mean, are you happy?”
He shut his laptop a little too hard. “Hanna, you know I am. We wanted this, right?”
I nodded.
