Caleb stopped walking.
“Not all of them,” he said quietly. “I’m still here.”
Nate exhaled slowly. “Because you want to be… or because you feel like you should?”
Caleb didn’t answer.
The silence felt like confirmation.
A House Too Big
Nate’s lakefront home north of the city had once felt like triumph. Now it felt like a museum—every sound echoing back his own frustration.
Caregivers came and went, dismissed quickly. One spoke too gently. Another sighed too often. A third wore that familiar expression of pity mixed with discomfort—an expression Nate recognized instantly.
“You don’t need another nurse,” Caleb said one evening. “You need someone to handle the house.”
Nate nodded once. “As long as they don’t talk. And as long as they don’t look at me like I’m a project.”
That was how Isabella Cruz arrived.
She rang the doorbell early one cold morning, dressed simply, her dark hair pulled back neatly, posture steady. There was no hesitation in her eyes. No false softness.
