Furniture gone.
Walls bare.
Like we had never lived there at all.
Then I heard it.
Crying.
Upstairs.
I moved as fast as I could, pain cutting through the prosthetic with every step.
The nursery door was open.
My mother stood inside, holding one baby. The other was crying in the crib.
She looked at me—
and broke.
“Arnie…”
Her eyes dropped to my leg.
“Where’s Mara?”
She couldn’t answer right away.
“She asked me to take the girls out… said she needed time alone. When I came back…”
Her voice gave out.
That’s when I saw the note.
One line.
That was all it took.
“I can’t do this. I won’t waste my life on a broken man and diapers. Mark can give me more.”
I read it twice.
Not because I didn’t understand.
Because I needed to.
Mark didn’t just tell her.
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.
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