Five years after losing my wife, I’d built a quiet life with my daughter Sophie—just the two of us. But one moment at my best friend’s wedding shattered everything. When the groom lifted the bride’s veil, I froze. It was her. Elena. The woman I had mourned for years. Sophie tugged my sleeve, whispering, “Dad, why are you crying?” And just like that, my world tilted.
I hadn’t planned to attend that wedding. Back then, a friend dragged me to a downtown party I didn’t want to go to. I was exhausted, my hands calloused from construction work. But that night, across a crowded room, I saw Elena. She wasn’t the untouchable heiress I expected—she was warm, curious, alive.
Six months later, we married. Her parents didn’t attend, cut her off completely, but she didn’t care. We started small: a modest apartment, me juggling construction by day and architecture studies by night, her working at an art gallery. Life was simple, but we were happy.
Then our daughter arrived, and something shifted. Elena’s patience wore thin. She compared our life to the one she had left behind, complaining about budgets, small apartments, and delayed dreams. Arguments became daily. One afternoon, I came home to flowers and found her gone. A note in Sophie’s crib read: “I want a divorce. I’m sorry. Sophie is with Mrs. Torres.”
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