A month later, Brett asked to meet me at a small park. He looked older, thinner, and completely defeated.
“I lost everything,” he said softly.
I looked down at June sleeping in her stroller. “No, Brett. You threw everything away the moment you drove off that mountain.”
Then I turned and walked toward my car. Behind me, I heard him crying for the first time. But I never looked back. Because the night of the wildfire took my marriage, yet it gave me something far greater—a daughter who would never have to wonder whether her mother would choose her first.
