the workshop where my husband, Darren, worked, and the evening smell of brewing coffee that always filled our tiny apartment. Those little things, those simple sensory anchors, made our life feel whole. We didn’t own much, but we had each other, and in the naivete of new love, that felt like enough.

Darren was an auto mechanic, a man with grease permanently etched into the lines of his hands and a surprising gentleness in his voice. He’d come home tired, his shoulders slumped from a