Six months ago, my husband’s best friend died of a heart attack.

When Mark told me, he looked hollow, like someone had scooped everything out of him and left only the shell. I wrapped my arms around him, but he didn’t hold me back. His hands just hung there at his sides.

I told myself it was shock. Grief. The kind that knocks the air out of your lungs.

It never once crossed my mind that guilt might be tangled up in it.

At the funeral, the church overflowed. David’s widow, Sarah, looked so fragile I kept expecting her to fold in on herself. When she saw Mark, she clung to him longer than anyone else.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” she whispered.

He held her carefully. Tenderly. Like something precious.

Their son, Leo, only eight years old, stood there gripping the hem of his mother’s black dress. Mark reached out and placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder. For just a second, I caught something flicker in his eyes — something too intense for the moment

He was whispering to a dead man.

“Mark?” I said softly.

He startled. “I was just saying goodbye.”

Leo was behind us, hovering, watching everything.

That night, Mark sat on the edge of our bed and stared at the floor.

“Leo doesn’t have a dad now,” he said finally. “I need to step up. For him. For Sarah. Make sure they’re okay.”

I nodded. It sounded noble. It sounded kind.

A week later, he told me Sarah had agreed to let him spend Saturdays with Leo.

“Baseball practice. Burgers. Guy stuff,” he said.

And just like that, a new routine was born.

Every Saturday at 7 a.m., Mark was out the door. Everyone praised him. Called him selfless. A saint.

I believed it, too.

About a month in, I suggested something simple.

“Why don’t you bring Leo here after practice? I’ll cook. Sarah must be exhausted.”

Mark hesitated.

“That might confuse things.”

“Confuse what? It’s just dinner.”

He stared at the wall like he was calculating something invisible. Then he nodded.

The first time Leo came over, I felt it instantly — something tight and brittle in the air.

The boy stood in our entryway clutching his backpack like armor. He barely spoke. When we baked cookies and I started reading Harry Potter to him, he relaxed a little.

Mark didn’t.

He sat at the kitchen table, watching. Watching me. Watching Leo.

And Leo kept glancing at him like he was waiting for approval.