The loss had rearranged time. Everett's first months alone blurred into school pickups, hospital paperwork, unpaid leave, and the strange experience of discovering that bills continued arriving with perfect regularity even when life had stopped making sense. He kept the repair skills, but the steady position became impossible when his employer required evening availability he could not reliably provide. Gradually, he built a patchwork schedule from grocery deliveries before sunrise, appliance repairs in the afternoon, and office cleaning after Marlo was asleep with a trusted neighbor nearby.
A normal week left him sleeping in fragments. On delivery mornings, he drove a battered hatchback whose heater worked only when the engine had been running long enough to warm the entire cabin. His tools rattled in the trunk beside reusable shopping bags. During repair appointments, he tried not to let customers notice the exhaustion in his hands, because people wanted confidence from the person fixing their machines, not explanations about why he had been awake since dawn.
The night work was the loneliest. He emptied trash bins beneath fluorescent lights in offices whose glass walls overlooked the glittering skyline. Desks displayed framed photographs of vacations, graduations, and families gathered around enormous dining tables. Sometimes he paused beside a photograph of children laughing at a beach and wondered whether the parents in the picture knew how valuable that moment would become when life changed.
He never spoke bitterly about people who had more. Clara had taught him that comparing lives could steal the small pleasures still within reach, and he tried to remember that when his own circumstances felt especially narrow. But there were evenings when he looked at the city from a twenty-third-floor office and wondered how so many lights could be shining at once while one apartment a few miles away remained cold. Then he would wipe down the desk, lift his cleaning bag, and continue.
The morning before Christmas Eve, Marlo appeared at the kitchen doorway while he was heating oatmeal. She wore pajamas with tiny blue stars and held her stuffed rabbit beneath one arm. Her hair had come loose from the braid Mrs. Alvarez next door had helped her make the previous evening. She regarded the pot on the stove with the serious expression she used when deciding whether a drawing looked right.
"Is that breakfast or the beginning of glue?" she asked.
Everett looked into the oatmeal, which had thickened while he checked his phone. "Depends. Are you planning to build a house with it?"
"Maybe a very little one."
He spooned it into two bowls and added cinnamon to hers. The cinnamon was nearly gone, but she loved how the scent reminded her of the cookies Clara used to bake at Christmas. When Everett turned to pour water into the kettle, Marlo nudged a few of her apple slices onto his side of the table, making sure he did not see the transfer.
He noticed, of course. He noticed nearly everything she did, especially when she thought she was taking care of him. "Those apples look like they walked out of your bowl," he said.
Marlo shrugged with exaggerated innocence. "They probably wanted an adventure."
"They must be very brave apples."
She laughed, and for a moment the room was warm enough. Everett knew how easily a child's happiness could be interrupted by a parent's worried face, so he let himself enjoy her laughter without reaching ahead to the bills. They ate slowly while the window gathered a thin lace of frost.