Your mom hadn’t hummed in eleven years—not since Dad died. Then Richard came into her life, and suddenly she was wearing perfume, buying new clothes, and laughing again. He was kind, attentive, and always brought flowers, but there was one strange habit: every Sunday, he left at exactly 7:30. When Chloe noticed the pattern too, we began to wonder what he was hiding. Mom admitted she had ali never even seen his house, but she only said, “Please let me have this. Even if it turns out badly, let me have the part where I still get to hope.”
