He didn’t. He just kept watching the sky, waiting for her to come back down from wherever they said she went. Afterward, everything slowed. His teachers checked in. His friends waited for him at the gate. But he couldn’t find the words. Couldn’t find the version of himself that used to laugh, run, talk. At first, his dad tried.
They watched movies together and made boxed mac and cheese the way Mom used to. But that stopped after a few months. His dad started coming home later. He stopped smiling. And Lucas stopped waiting for things to go back to normal. She came into their lives like a soft breeze at first—gentle, polite, almost too perfect.