He didn’t return with flowers or speeches, but with dented grocery bags and the clumsy courage of someone who knew he had no right to ask for anything. His hands shook when he signed school permission slips. He hovered at doorways, waiting to be told to leave. The kids watched him like scientists, measuring every flinch, every late arrival, every promise that might snap under its own weight.

I built rules like scaffolding around a life I refused to let collapse again. No big declarations, no future-tense fantasies, no skipping the hard parts. But slowly, the air changed. The kids started saving him seats. His name stopped sounding like an apology in my mouth. We didn’t pretend the years apart were a misunderstanding. We let them stand, heavy and real, while we reached around them for something new. What grew wasn’t a fairy tale, but a fragile, ordinary grace: not a clean slate, just the daily, deliberate choice to stay.