The first time I arrived at the office after the accident ... after Ruth died ... I felt like I was trespassing. It had been almost two years. But my gate pass still worked, and my car spot was empty, so that helped. I’d been absent ... not forgotten.

Same building. Same concrete and glass. Same colourful company sign with the logo I’d argued about for weeks when we first moved in... no, it doesn’t need kerbside appeal, Ron; we’re engineers, not a Hardware store. We’re in an industrial estate for f•©k’s sake... I smiled to myself when the smell of hops and coffee and eucalyptus hit me all at once. It was an industrial estate, but a slightly upmarket one. Carver & Hayes stood between a coffee roastery and a micro-brewery among stands of towering River Gums just back from the Brisbane River in Eagle Farm.

But it wasn’t the same place, because I wasn’t the same man.

I had my hand on the steering wheel as I opened the car door and my wedding ring caught the light ... just a tiny flash ... and I reacted, unconsciously: a little shudder in the ribs, almost a sob, like I suddenly needed a breath. Two years. Two f•©king years, and I still had moments where I would reach for her like she was right beside me, like... oh, hey Ruth, didn’t see you there ... and then remember, she was gone.

I sat there too long, watching staff walk in and out, laughing, holding coffees, tapping their phones, gesturing with that brisk, purposeful energy I used to have. A lot of the were new faces, there had been some changes in my absence. I saw one of our project managers ... Leanne ... raise a hand to someone. It could’ve been to me. It wasn’t. I felt stupid anyway, as if I’d been caught hoping.

The counsellor called it “re-entry anxiety.” That phrase made me want to punch things. Like grief was a site hazard and we just needed a better induction process, a Toolbox briefing to mitigate the risk. Something that could be designed around.

As I walked toward the doors, I checked my phone. Out of habit really. No missed calls. No messages.

Lucy had already left for uni. Tina had left early too, for her own work. They’d both hugged me on the way out, like they were sending me off to war. Lucy had clung for an extra second and whispered, “You’ll be okay, Dad,” and I’d lied and said, “Yeah. Course.”

I took a breath. Then another as I lifted my arm reaching toward the steel handle.

Jesus, relax, breath ... Just walk in. It’s your company. It’s literally your company.

My hands were sweating. I wiped them on my pants. I tried a joke in my head, something Ruth would’ve rolled her eyes at.

Look at you, Simon. You own fifty-five percent of this door and you’re scared of it.

And then, because my brain is a bastard, because I hadn’t tortured myself enough today, it supplied the image of Ruth’s hand on a glass door ... her fingers splayed, the light shining through her wedding band. The memory didn’t even belong to a specific day; it was just the idea of her, and it hit me like gut punch.

I opened the door. Inside was too bright, internal lighting adding to the Brisbane summer day that was streaming through the glass walls.

When I started walking through the foyer, I could feel the old rhythm trying to return ... shoulders back, head up, that faintly arrogant stride of a man who knew his worth and knew he’d earned his place. But grief had done something to my body. It had softened me. Not softer like kind or approachable. Softer like bruised fruit.

The reception desk had been moved since I’d last been here properly. New paint too ... lighter, more “modern.” Ron’s taste. Ron liked everything clean and bright and forward-looking, as if the future could be assured if we kept using the correct palette.

A young woman looked up from behind the desk. Not Kylie ... Kylie had been with us from the beginning, 16 years, and she’d cried at Ruth’s funeral and hugged my daughters. She had been our mother, gently guiding and shaping the culture and the personality of the place. This girl had the smooth face of someone who hadn’t been through the fire, too young ... I gave myself a mental slap ... I had just judged this girl on looks alone and I almost apologised.

“Hi,” she said, polite, uncertain. “Can I help you?”

“I’m Simon,” I said.

Her eyes widened, quick panic, then a smile that was a moment too delayed. “Oh ... Mr. Carver. I’m sorry. I mean, Simon. Hi. I’m ... I’m Abby.”

“Hey Abby, no need to be sorry, it’s all good,” I said. I wanted to say I used to belong here, but that sounded pathetic even inside my head.

She stood, flustered. “Mike’s in. He said ... he said you’d be in today. I can let him know you’re here?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Thanks.”

She picked up the phone, then paused like she didn’t know what title to use.

Mr. Carver. Director. Owner. The Widower. The guy that’s been sulking at home for two years.

I moved toward the hallway that led to the offices. Someone had put up framed photos along the wall ... team shots, project sites, the company logo at events. There was one photo from a Christmas party I barely remembered. Ruth was in it, laughing, her hand on my shoulder, red lipstick, hair pinned up. Someone had chosen that photo and displayed it like a trophy.

I stopped right there in the hallway, staring at her face. It wasn’t a sharp pain anymore, not always. Sometimes it was worse: a dull, endless ache, like a tooth ache ... in your chest.

God, Ruth.

I heard footsteps. A voice.

“Simon?”

I blinked, forced my eyes away from the photo.

Mike came toward me fast. Mike had always moved like he was late for something, even when he wasn’t. Tall, broad, dark hair going grey at the temples, same crooked grin he’d had at twenty. Same eyes, too ... kind, sharp. He saw me the way a friend does: not as a story, not as a cautionary tale, but as a person he’d known long enough to understand.

He reached me and didn’t do the awkward handshake thing people do with grieving men. He just pulled me into a hug. A real one. Arms tight, chest solid.

I stiffened for half a second because my body wasn’t used to being held anymore. Then, I let go of whatever pride I still had and hugged him back.

“Mate,” he said into my shoulder. His voice was rough. “You’re here.”

“Yeah,” I managed.

He stepped back, hands on my shoulders, looking at my face like he was checking a patient. “How you holding up?”

There were a thousand answers. Not well. Better. I don’t know. I want my wife. I want to lie on the floor and never move again.

Instead, I said the one I always said: “Doing my best.”

Mike gave a small nod, like he understood that “doing my best” could mean barely not drowning. “Come on. My office. Get you a coffee.”

As we walked, heads popped out of offices. People looked up from desks. Some smiled. Some looked away fast, like eye contact might obligate them to say something they didn’t know how to say.

“Welcome back, Simon.”

“Good to see you.”

“Hey, Boss.”

Each greeting landed like a small weight, not because it was bad, but because it reminded me there was a version of me that they expected see, that they expected to return.

Mike opened his office door. It smelled like coffee. His desk was cluttered with drawings and folders and a little toy excavator someone had given him. Two huge monitors dominated one side. Along the side of the space the wall was covered with his degrees, his diplomas, his industry awards from 20 years of making sure some of Queensland’s and Australia’s most complex industrial structures were still standing. In front of the wall were three drawing tables, each covered with building plans, old school, a quarter century into the millennium... CAD is great for design but once it’s done, I need paper; I need to see the whole thing laid out, it talks to me... he’d been saying that for as long as I’d know him.

He gestured to the chair. “Sit.”

I sat. My legs felt weak, which annoyed me. Grief had turned me into a man who got tired from existing.

Mike went to the small kitchenette unit in the corner. “Black?”

“Yeah.”

He made coffee like it was a ritual. Instant because he hated brewed coffee and real barista coffee was too far away ... two sugars because he thought life was short and bitterness wasn’t a virtue. Then ... a sound I never thought I would hear in this space. The whirring, liquid churning of a Nespresso machine. Mouth open in surprise I turned toward the sound to see a grinning Mike nodding his head and pointing. “Kylie”, he said. “Just before she left. She said it was so I didn’t crush the soul of her replacement moaning about instant coffee.”

I held the cup with both hands. Warmth seeped into my fingers. For a second, it felt like being alive ... home.

Mike sat opposite me, leaned back, exhaled. “So,” he said carefully, “how do you want to do today?”

The question wasn’t about schedules. It was about whether I’d shatter if someone put pressure on me.

“I want to work,” I said.

Mike’s eyebrows lifted slightly. “Okay.”

“I’m not here to do a tour and cry in the hallway.” I regretted saying it. It sounded defensive.

But Mike didn’t flinch. “Fair. We can ease you in. There aren’t any medals for suffering.”

I stared into the coffee. The surface trembled slightly from my hands. “I don’t want special treatment.”

Mike’s voice softened. “You’re not getting special treatment. You’re getting human treatment.”

That word... human... hit me. I’d spent two years feeling like grief had made me something else, something less.

Mike watched me for a moment. Then he said, “Ron’s been asking about you.”

My mouth tightened without permission. “Of course he has.”

Mike rubbed a hand over his jaw. “He’s ... he’s been pushing hard. Expansion, Acquisition, stuff ... He’s been talking about a sale like it’s a foregone conclusion.”

I looked up. “And you?”

Mike’s eyes held mine. “You know me. I want the company to grow, sure. I’d love to be rich, but we built this from nothing, you and me and Kylie and Ruth. I’m not selling it off like it’s a house we renovated.”

I exhaled, nodding.

Mike leaned forward. “He’s been telling people you’re not coming back.”

Heat rose in my chest. “Telling who?”

“Friends. Clients. Some staff.” Mike’s voice tightened. “Not blatantly. Just ... dropping it in. ‘Simon’s still not himself.’ ‘Simon’s not up for it.’ That sort of thing.”

My hands curled around the mug. The ceramic squeaked faintly. “I’m right here.”

“I know.” Mike’s gaze was steady, loyal. “That’s why I wanted you back before he could make it ... true.”

I swallowed. My throat was dry. “He wants me to step back.”

Mike didn’t answer immediately, which was answer enough.

I set the mug down before I crushed it. “He can want whatever he likes. It’s not f•©king happening. He’s not even an engineer. He’s a f•©king salesman.”

Mike nodded. “Just ... be prepared. He’ll smile at you. He’ll say the right things. Then he’ll push.”

I almost laughed. “Ron’s whole personality is pushing.”

Mike gave a short smile. Then it faded. “I’m glad you’re here, Simon ... the place feels better already.”

The word glad almost made me cry. Ridiculous! A grown man nearly crying because his friend said he was glad.

But grief does that. It breaks your internal scale. Things that used to be small become massive. Things that used to matter become dust. It shifts your perspective, your priorities. I was going to have to force myself back into Managing Director mode, especially if I was going to have to deal with shit from our other partner.

I looked at Mike and, for a moment I saw us in university ... two idiots with too much confidence, convinced we’d build something solid. We had. We’d grown from two desks in a rented room to thirty staff, our own building, projects across the state and overseas, a reputation for being careful, honest, reliable. We’d survived tough markets, bad clients, late payments, dodgy subcontractors, all of it.

And then Ruth died and I nearly lost everything anyway.

Not to competition. Not to a lawsuit. To my own mind. To my own self-made hell.

I don’t like telling the story of Ruth’s accident. The facts are simple enough: she was driving home from her sister’s place, late afternoon, rain starting to fall. A ute crossed the centre line. It shouldn’t have. There was a small bend, a moment of low visibility, and then metal and glass coming together and physics doing what physics does.

People always ask, “Was it instant?”

They mean well. They want to know if she suffered. They want to imagine it clean. Quick. Merciful.

The Police told me she died at the scene.

But what they didn’t tell me ... what I found out later, through the report I shouldn’t have read ... was that there were minutes, not long minutes, but minutes. Minutes where she was alive enough for pain to exist. Alive enough for fear. Alive enough to scream and for the unimaginable terror of knowing she was dying.

I’ve spent two years trying not to picture it and failing. Two years of living those minutes with her.

The phone call came while I was in a meeting with a client who didn’t want to spend money on proper retaining walls “their just for looks,” just “do it cheaper.” Mike was going over the code requirements for the fourth time. I remember my phone buzzing. I remember ignoring it. I remember thinking, I’ll call back in a minute.

My phone buzzed again. I felt something ... odd. I stepped out, answered, and my life split into before and after. When I close my eyes, I can still recall every minute detail.

“Mr. Carver?” A man’s voice. Calm. Professional.

“Yes.”

“This is Senior Constable...”

I stopped hearing individual words. It was like my brain knew what was coming and started shutting doors to protect itself.

“There’s been an accident.”

“No,” I said automatically. “No...”

“Your wife, Ruth Carver...”

I remember sliding down the wall until I was sitting on the carpet like a child.

The client’s laughter filtered through the door, muffled.

I said, “Is she okay?”

Silence. Not long. But enough.

“I’m sorry.”

And then a noise came out of me. A raw, animal sound. I’d never made that sound before. I hope I never make it again.

Mike was there instantly; he helped me up and began the process of getting me home to my daughters.