The morning I turned thirty began under a sky the color of bruised fruit, low and swollen with rain. It was a Tuesday, already tired before it started. In the kitchen, the smell of scorched butter mixed with something warmer and steadier. My wife, Emily, stood over the stove flipping uneven pancakes with stubborn optimism, while our six-year-old son, Noah, sat at the table attacking a sheet of construction paper with a crayon.
He slid the card across to me, edges jagged from safety scissors. A stick figure with oversized teeth held a balloon. “Happy Birthday Dad,” it read, letters wobbling but proud.
