The Call That Changed Everything

Three weeks ago, my ex-wife d.ied in a car accident, and in an instant, the world tilted off its axis.

Even though we hadn’t been together for years, she was still our son’s mother. She was still the person who had given him half of his world.

And when she was gone, something inside him seemed to collapse.

Jake is fourteen—tall for his age, his voice already beginning to change.

But since the funeral, he somehow looked smaller.

Like grief had folded him inward.