It was not just the quiet of an empty house or the absence of his footsteps in the hallway. It was the kind of stillness that seeps into your chest and settles there, making every breath feel unfamiliar. He had been my anchor, the one constant in my life, and without him, the world felt unsteady.
My dad was the kind of man who believed in small rituals. Saturday mornings meant pancakes stacked too high and drenched in syrup. School mornings came with encouraging words that sounded simple but always landed exactly where I needed them. Before every test, every audition, every big moment, he would look me straight in the eye and remind me that I was capable of more than I realized.
When my mother died years earlier, he became everything at once. Parent, cheerleader, safety net. For nearly a decade, it was just the two of us learning how to move forward together. Eventually, he remarried. That was when Carla entered our lives.
