By the time I pulled into the driveway, my hands were trembling again.
Our house was small, two bedrooms upstairs, one tiny office downstairs that doubled as a laundry room when life got messy.
The porch railing needed repainting.
One shutter hung a little crooked.
There was a pink scooter on the grass and a half-deflated rubber ball under the hydrangea bush.
Regular life.
Normal life.
The kind you work like hell to protect.
My wife, Emily, opened the front door before I even made it to the steps.
She had one of our daughters’ socks in her hand and a worried look already rising in her eyes.
“You’re home,” she said. “What happened?”
That was all it took.
I broke all over again.
Emily didn’t ask me to explain right away.
She just pulled me inside, shut the door, and wrapped both arms around me while I stood there in the hallway with my work bag still hanging from my shoulder like I was some fool who had shown up at the wrong address.
