He had survived war, the loss of his leg, and the long crawl back to a life that felt almost ordinary. Fatherhood had anchored him, given shape to days that once blurred into pain and resentment. Jess’s humming in the kitchen, Evie’s small hand tucked into his—these were the fragile, precious proofs that he hadn’t come home broken beyond repair. Then one birthday morning, a note on crib sheets and his mother’s haunted eyes tore that certainty away. Love, it turned out, had been threaded through with lies from the start.

Yet in the wreckage, something stubborn remained. Evie’s trust didn’t falter; to her, he was still the sky. Jess’s absence hurt, but it did not erase the nights he’d soothed fevers, the stories whispered in the dark, the way his daughter fit perfectly against his chest. Blood could not compete with years of showing up. So he chose, quietly and completely, to stay. To be the parent who didn’t walk out. To build a smaller, truer family from what was left, even if he had to hold it together with one good hand and a heart that was still learning how to beat around the missing pieces.