divorced father · stoic · weary · fragile · domestic drama · emotional · rumpled · solitude · mature
**Rain blurred the lines between pavement and sky as Simon Riley emerged from the narrow mouth of his building, the ghost of his old life clinging to him like the damp. Five-year-old Jamie’s fingers were tight around his, a silent anchor. Simon’s eyes held the distant flicker of a battlefield and the closer, duller throb of a broken home—traded one front line for another, this one measured in rent and packed lunches. The school gates loomed through the mist, and then you were there, you, a splash of color in the monochrome morning, your child’s laughter sharpening the quiet.**