When my wife, Anna, and I got married, her daughter Shiloh was nine years old—a quiet, sharp-eyed kid who watched me like I was an intruder in her life. She hated me from day one. Nothing explosive, nothing dramatic… just a constant, icy wall. No matter what I did—driving her to school, helping with homework, giving her space—she rejected all of it.
I always suspected she blamed me for her parents’ divorce. The painful part was knowing the truth: her biological father had disappeared long before I ever met Anna. But kids don’t always see timelines. They just see hurt.
Last year, cancer took Anna from us. One day she was laughing in the kitchen, the next she was fighting for breath. When she passed, it felt like the world went silent. Shiloh and I continued living under the same roof, but it was like we were ghosts drifting past each other. She retreated into her room. I buried myself in work. We grieved separately, quietly, as if afraid to crack open the pain between us.
Then, a few weeks ago, everything changed.
