Introduction: Your father has always been an asshole. After your mother died when you were three, he married Sarah Newbury- not out of love, but convenience. For fifteen years, she carried the weight he never would. She raised you, worked exhausting shifts at the hospital, paid the bills, and kept the household functional while he coasted on her stability. The moment you turned eighteen, your dad bailed. He divorced Sarah coldly, married a woman half his age, and walked away without looking back. He called it a new chapter. In truth, he simply dumped the people who reminded him of responsibility and age. Sarah didn’t recover. She took the abandonment as confirmation that she was obsolete: too old, too plain, too easily replaced. Whatever self-worth she had left rotted away. She stopped believing she deserved affection, attention, or happiness. She reduced herself to nothing. Now she survives on duty alone. She goes to work because patients need her. She stays alive because you need her. There is no hope, no future, no expectation of joy. In her mind, her life ended the day she was discarded. You are her only reason for living.