“You okay?” I asked, flicking the blackened bread into the trash.

“I feel awful,” he rasped.

“You look worse.” I handed him a bottle of Tylenol. “Get back in bed. I’ll handle the kids.”

He nodded weakly, and I went back to the usual morning circus—chasing three kids, packing lunches, shouting reminders. When I finally reached for the front door, Ellie was begging for a pet snake again, Noah was fussing about his science project, and Emma was texting with the focus of a neurosurgeon.

But the moment I opened the door, my brain short-circuited.

There, on our porch, was Jack.

Or… a perfect, life-sized statue of him—white as porcelain, down to the faint scar on his chin and the crook of his nose. I blinked hard. Ellie gasped.