I stood at the kitchen window, hands around a cooling coffee, rain tracing the glass. The woman in the reflection wasn’t the one who once believed in forever.
“Mom, Emma took my dinosaur again!” Ethan shouted.
“Did not!” Emma snapped back.
I knelt between them. “Remember what we said about sharing?”
“But Daddy never shares,” Emma muttered.
She wasn’t wrong. Mike had slowly drifted away from us. Now, three weeks after I filed for divorce, he was packing — more obsessed with what was his than what we had shared.
“I’m taking the TV,” he said. “And the blender. And the beanbags.”
Emma’s lip trembled. “But Daddy—”
“They’re mine.”
After the kids went upstairs, I told him, “Those were Christmas gifts. For your children.”
“You ruined this family,” he shot back.
I didn’t argue. I didn’t need to.
That night, after reassuring the kids it wasn’t their fault, I collapsed on the couch. By morning, Mike was removing door handles. “I bought these,” he said, collecting them in a bucket.
He wanted a reaction. I gave none. Because when someone starts measuring love in doorknobs, you’ve already won.
Days later, my phone rang. “Alice, I need help,” he said. He was trapped in his mom’s house — the new lock he’d installed broke, and he couldn’t get out.
“Try the upstairs window,” I said, suppressing a smile.
Later, the beanbags reappeared on our porch. No note, just returned.
“Daddy brought them back!” Emma squealed.
“Does that mean he’s coming home?” Ethan asked.
“No, sweetheart,” I said softly. “But it means he’s remembering what matters.”
That evening, Mike rang the bell. He handed me a small bag with new door handles and keys. “I missed my interview. Fell in Mom’s rose bushes. Got yelled at. But I learned something.”
“Can I say hi to them?” he asked.
I let him in. The kids didn’t rush to him—but they didn’t turn away either.
And as I closed the door behind us, I realized: we can lose the things we own, but still hold onto what matters. Sometimes, letting go is what truly sets us free.