To understand how I got here, holding a remote as if it were a loaded weapon, you have to go back two years.
She couldn’t believe what I was doing.
***
My wife, Rachel, died in a car accident on a Thursday. The following day, I was a single father to a six-year-old named Lily and a 10-year-old named Grace. The latter wasn’t related to me by blood but had called me “Dad” since she was four.
Rachel had her daughter from her first marriage.
Our house became a museum of small disasters. Burned pancakes. Tangled braids I couldn’t get right no matter how many YouTube videos I watched. Three toothbrushes crammed into a chipped cup on the bathroom sink.
The latter wasn’t related to me by blood.
“Daddy, you’re doing it wrong again,” Grace told me one morning, sighing like a tired manager.
“I’m doing my best, kid.”
“Your best is a rat’s nest!”
