A real man.

Chapter 2: A New Life

After my mother finally put an end to our association with the Parker family, we moved to Connecticut where she found steady work as a school teacher. As my mother resumed her maiden name Harris, I changed mine as well. I was raised in meager, but loving surroundings by a single mom with a single purpose. She taught me to be my own man, and never to rely on perceived gifts from others. It was clear that nothing would be handed to me, and I would become the man I wanted to become through my own decisions.

When I was twenty five years old, I met the perfect woman and was married a scant six months later. One year to the day after our marriage, our son Edward was born. I became a columnist at a newspaper, and my mother moved into the spare bedroom in our home. My wife was the daughter my mother never had, and the two couldn’t have gotten along better. Life proceeded practically idyllically for five years, when the accident happened.

It was a pleasant autumn Saturday, and my mother and wife had done a girls’ day field trip to the outlet mall an hour away. On their way back a car in front of them veered out of control causing a pileup that took the lives of seven people, two of whom were the two most important women in my life. Suddenly, Edward and I were alone. Though the grief was nearly unbearable, we moved forward and gradually settled into a new existence. If any good can come from such a tragedy, it was the close bond that my son and I formed during those impossible few years when the pain was still so sharp.