When Maya agrees to take in a stranger’s dog on a freezing afternoon, she has no idea how deeply it will change her life. Two months later, a letter arrives, unmarked and unexpected, and what it reveals will reshape everything she thought she knew about loss, love, and the quiet ways we’re watched.My name is Maya, I’m 38 years old, and three months ago, I buried the man I believed I’d grow old with.Daniel and I were married for 11 years. He was my partner, my compass, and the calm in every storm. When he was diagnosed with cancer, the entire world stopped.For nearly two years, we tried everything: radiation, chemotherapy, clinical trials, and even whispered prayers in hospital parking lots.

Now it’s just me and our daughter, Lucy. She’s six years old: bright, kind, and heartbreakingly perceptive in the way children sometimes are when they’ve seen too much too young.She knows I cry at night in the kitchen. And I know that she sometimes pretends to sleep so I won’t hear her crying or hugging Daniel’s photo at night.Look, we’re surviving… one day at a time, right?I went back to work as soon as I could; the bills, especially the medical ones, had already gutted our savings. Even with insurance, the costs had piled up with quiet brutality: treatment co-pays, medication, hospital parking, and even the little things like takeout on nights I didn’t have the energy to stand.t all added up until there was almost nothing left.Most nights, after Lucy had gone to bed, I would sit at the kitchen table, hunched over spreadsheets and open envelopes. I’d tap numbers into a calculator with trembling fingers, trying to convince myself that maybe, somehow, it would balance out.