My name is Maya. I’m thirty-eight years old, but three months ago time stopped feeling measurable. Three months ago, I buried my husband, Daniel. We were married for eleven years. He was my partner, my anchor, and the calm presence that held everything steady. For nearly two years, we fought his cancer with every option available—chemotherapy, radiation, clinical trials, and whispered prayers in quiet hospital hallways. Cancer took him anyway.
Now it’s just me and our six-year-old daughter, Lucy. She is gentle and observant in a way only children who’ve seen too much can be. She notices when I sit at the kitchen table late at night trying not to cry. I notice when she pretends to be asleep so I won’t hear her hugging her father’s photo. We move through our days carefully, learning how to survive without the man who made everything feel safe.
Going back to work wasn’t a decision. It was a necessity. Medical bills had drained everything we had. Co-pays, prescriptions, parking fees, and small survival expenses quietly erased our savings. Nights became long stretches of silence filled with paperwork, calculators, and exhaustion that sleep never seemed to fix.
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