My name is Robert. I spent thirty-five years building a company, raising a family, being the man everyone expected me to be. Then my wife died, my kids grew up, and I realized I had no idea who I was anymore.

Margaret passed three years ago. Cancer. Eighteen months from diagnosis to funeral. I held her hand at the end, told her I loved her, and meant every word.

The grief nearly killed me. For a year, I didn't leave the house. Didn't eat. Didn't care. My daughter Elena flew in every month, worried I'd do something stupid.

"You need to get out, Dad. Mom wouldn't want this."

She was right. Margaret would have hated seeing me waste away. So I tried. Golf with old friends. Dinners at the club. A disastrous blind date with a widow who spent two hours comparing me to her dead husband.

Nothing worked. I felt like a ghost haunting my own life.

Then I met Amber.

She was a barista at a coffee shop I started visiting to escape my empty house. Bright smile, purple streaks in her hair, a laugh that echoed across the room.