The love in a family isn't tested when things are easy; it's tested when the world feels like it's tilting.
That autumn, the tilt came in the form of a phone call. Elias's woodworking shop—the business he'd spent a decade building—had caught fire due to a faulty electrical line in the neighboring unit. No one was hurt, but the inventory was gone, and the insurance company was being "traditionally difficult," as Martha put it.
For the first time in his life, Elias went quiet. Not the comfortable quiet of a Saturday morning, but a heavy, suffocating silence. He stopped making the constellation pancakes. He sat on the porch, staring at the trees, his hands—usually stained with sawdust and oil—clean and restless.
The children felt it instantly. A family is an ecosystem; when the sun stops shining, the plants notice.
Maya stopped arguing. Leo started staying home on Friday nights. Toby stopped drawing spaceships and started drawing "Money Machines" that looked suspiciously like ATMs with wings.