She stopped again, emotion catching in her throat.
“My world was destroyed,” she said. “I didn’t have time to fall apart. I didn’t have time to grieve. I had five daughters and a job that didn’t wait for me to breathe.”
Alex swallowed hard, heart tight in his chest.
“I worked. I came home. I did what I had to do. I didn’t cry in front of them. I didn’t let them see the holes. Because they needed me to be solid.”
She looked down at the photo again. “I loved him. God, I loved him. He and David were more than friends. They were brothers. They died like brothers, side by side, trying to save lives. And animals locked them in to die.”
Her fingers ran gently across the cracked glass. “I never got to say goodbye.”
Alex didn’t say anything. He just started gathering the broken pieces of the frame, brushing glass shards into a pile on the floor. His silence wasn’t cold. It was steady. Respectful.
“I’m sorry,” he said finally, voice quiet.
“I know.”
They sat there, surrounded by the wreckage of her house and the ruins of her past. But for the first time, she wasn’t carrying it alone. She set the photo beside her, leaned back against the wall, and closed her eyes. He watched as she finally allowed herself to feel it all.
The fire.
The loss.
The weight of motherhood and duty and silence.
Slowly, she opened her eyes again. Then the tears came—not the quiet kind. Not the kind that leak out one at a time in moments of sentimentality. He knew she’d buried this kind of tears for over two decades, tears locked behind work and duty and motherhood. Her chest hitched, and her shoulders shook as she was swept up in the grief she’d never given herself time to feel.
Alex just pulled her against him and held her. Let her cry the way she needed to—no questions, no pressure, no timeline. His hand moved slowly across her back, steady and sure. It was the only thing he could offer. And maybe the only thing she needed.
He had always known there was a wall between them. Something she never let him touch. And now he understood it.
She had never grieved. Not really.
She never had the space, the permission, the time. Chuck died. David died. And she had five daughters under ten and a badge that didn’t allow for softness. So, she didn’t break. Not then. Not for them. Not for herself.
She did it now.
And he let her.
When the tears finally stopped, she sat up, wiped her face with the sleeve of her shirt, and looked around at the mess like it was a puzzle she was finally ready to solve.
“I should start with the upstairs,” she said, voice raw but steady.
Alex nodded. “Let’s do it.”
They startedin the master bedroom. The drawers were first—carefully sorting what could be saved, what could be tossed.Alex righted the closet door while Charlotte began folding shirts. The broken picture frame they’d salvaged together went on the nightstand, glass replaced with a clean sheet of plastic from a storage bin.
They moved room by room across the top floor—spare bedrooms, bathrooms, hallway shelves. When they made it to the main floor, Alex looked at her. “You hungry?”
Charlotte blinked—she hadn’t thought about food in days. “Yeah… I am, actually.”
He grinned. “Pizza?”
She smiled—soft, tired but real. “Pizza sounds perfect.”
They sat at the kitchen island, the box open between them, plates unnecessary. The light above buzzed faintly. Outside, evening had slipped into night.
She ate two slices in silence, then wiped her hands and leaned back in the chair. “I don’t talk about myself much.”
