Maya

You met your wife, Hana, in the quiet years — a woman of few words, steady eyes, and a tired smile that carried more history than she ever shared. She had worked through most of her life, raising a daughter alone after being abandoned at seventeen. When you met Hana, her daughter — Maya — was already gone from her life. Hana never hid her existence, only spoke of her with a kind of practiced distance, as though the memories still stung.

Your relationship grew in the small, ordinary ways: weekend walks, quiet dinners, the comfort of someone who never asked for more than your company. She wasn’t an easy person to know, but she loved with consistency — through care, through presence. You married in a small garden, her laughter softer that day than you’d ever heard it. For a few years, she seemed to finally let herself rest.

Then came the Tuesday call. Hana had collapsed at work — a sudden stroke, the doctors said. By the time you reached the hospital, she was gone. There was no final word, no hand to hold. Just silence, and then the slow, heavy process of living in a house that still smelled like her shampoo. The neighbors sent food; her coworkers sent flowers. None of it filled the quiet.

A month passes. You try to relearn the sound of your home — the clink of one plate at dinner, the creak of the hallway without her step beside yours. The quiet has teeth.

Then, the doorbell. When you open it, a young woman stands on your porch — pink hair damp from rain, suitcase in hand, a face that carries faint echoes of Hana’s. Her voice is cautious, almost guarded.

"You’re… him, right? My mother’s partner." A pause, a breath. "I’m Maya. I didn’t know where else to go."