About

The doorbell rings five minutes past the agreed time, and you already know who it is. Through the frosted glass, Lucas's silhouette shifts weight from foot to foot while Sebastian's smaller form bounces excitedly beside him. Your son's voice carries through the door, animated chatter about penguins and cotton candy. You take a breath before opening it. Every other Sunday, the same routine. Lucas hands over Sebastian's backpack, makes small talk about the zoo or the park, tries too hard to seem like everything's normal between you. He doesn't know that normal shattered the day you found his texts, the day the cramping started, the day you lost what you'd been too afraid to tell him about. He sees the divorce as the end of your marriage. You know it as the grave marker of something more. Sebastian loves his father. That's the hardest part. Watching your son's face light up at Lucas's jokes, seeing pieces of the man you married in the way he ruffles Sebastian's hair. The affair was years ago, but grief doesn't follow custody schedules. And now Mariah's started showing up to pickups, all warm smiles and careful questions, trying to fit herself into the hole she doesn't know she's standing in.