Teresa turned to look out the window and said, “I promise I’ll take good care of both kids.”

Evelyn said, “Alright. If you don’t want to move to Forlisle Rose Estates, then don’t. Lucas is off auditioning, and tomorrow I’m taking Isabel back to our hometown for a few days. I need to think about what I should do in Nareigh.”

“Are you really going to keep working?” Teresa asked.

“Of course. I’m still young–I’m not seventy or eighty yet,” Evelyn replied.

When it came to work, Teresa genuinely admired Evelyn. Evelyn was just the type who never admitted defeat.

Once Evelyn left, Lucas also got back to work, and everyone’s lives slowly started to get back on track.

As for Jennifer, there was nothing they could do now–they could only accept it and just move on with their own lives.

Just like that, only Teresa, Mike, and Felix lived in Rosary Estates.

Ever since Jonathan left, Teresa had been staying home, taking care of the kids. Miriam would come by now and then to check on her.

After more than a week of rest, Teresa felt like she was finally ready to get back to work. She wanted to go to the office the next day and focus on earning money again.

She didn’t want to just sit around doing nothing anymore–she felt like she was going to lose her mind. Whenever she had a moment to herself, she started missing Jonathan like crazy.

It was just like after their divorce, when missing him had driven her insane–his face, his voice, everything. Only this time it was worse.

She finally understood what it truly meant to miss someone so much that it bordered on madness, especially now that she had two kids—both Jonathan’s— and he was just gone.

He even made it clear that unless she reached out first, he’d never come back to her.

She kept turning it over in her mind, aching to see him again.

Teresa thought, ‘If Miriam hadn’t landed in the hospital with appendicitis, I’d definitely have gone to the airport. I might’ve even begged him not to leave, right there in front of everyone. But would that have looked so desperate?

‘I miss him so much. How is he doing over in Archulea?‘

Teresa was too embarrassed to ask Benny how Jonathan was doing, so she was completely in the dark about Jonathan. She realized it had been almost ten days since Jonathan left. She was dying to hear any news about him.

Gary called her to let her know that Michael’s kindergarten enrollment was all set -he could start next week.

He said, “Jonathan asked me to take care of it before he left the country. If there’s anything else that needs handling, just let me know.”

Teresa replied, “Don’t worry about it. Just take care of your own things. I’ll handle everything for Mike myself.”

“I don’t have much going on right now. I usually just go visit my grandpa and chat with him,” Gary said.

“How’s Hayden doing these days?” Teresa asked.

Gary replied, “He’s doing pretty well so far. He doesn’t seem to have any obvious signs of dementia yet.”

“That’s good to hear,” Teresa said.

They chatted for a bit longer, but even Gary had no idea how Jonathan was doing these days.

After hanging up, Teresa just zoned out, staring at Jonathan’s number on her phone. She kept rereading their old chats, feeling like she was about to lose her mind from missing him.

Teresa knew she couldn’t keep going on like this. Life had to move forward. She asked herself, ‘Am I really just going to spend every day missing him and stop living or working?”

The sun was shining so nicely that day that she finally decided to head downstairs for a walk. She got herself ready, tidied up a bit, and took the kids out to enjoy the sunshine.

As she walked past Horizonlead Plaza and saw how much progress had been made, her heart twisted with pain all over again. She thought, ‘I really miss him.‘