Thea Lang buried her husband on a cold Tuesday in March.
Josie was nine years old.
She stood beside her mother at the graveside, gripping her hand so tightly her small knuckles went white.
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It was a small funeral, close family only. A handful of coworkers from Thea’s husband’s job standing quietly near the back. The sky stayed gray the entire afternoon, threatening rain that never quite arrived. As if even the weather couldn’t decide how to mark a day like that one.
Thea didn’t cry in
front of her that day.
She saved the crying for later, alone, in the bathroom
deep into her skin that even lotion couldn’t fully erase it. She worked there six mornings a week. Four hours before her regular shift at the insurance office where she’d already spent a decade. Some nights she fell asleep at the kitchen table. Still in
her work clothes, a stack of unfolded laundry beside her.
Josie grew up fast.
She learned to cook simple meals by twelve.
She learned to budget by fourteen.
She learned,
most of all, to be strong for her mother. The way her mother had been strong for her.
By the time Josie turned eighteen, she was sharp, determined. And impossible to talk out of anything once she’d made up her mind.
She’d talked her way into an advanced placement class the school insisted she wasn’t ready for. Graduating from it with the second-highest grade in the group. She’d talked Thea into letting her get an
after-school job at sixteen. Insisting it would teach her responsibility rather than distract from schoolwork.And she’d been right on both counts. Thea used to joke that Josie had inherited stubbornness from both parents at once, doubled instead of split.
Josie enrolled in business school
two towns over.
She studied international trade. Drawn to the idea of a world bigger than the one she’d grown up in.
That’s where she met Aldric Voss.
He was a guest lecturer, visiting from Korea. Speaking about import regulations to a half-empty auditorium on a rainy Tuesday afternoon.
Josie almost skipped the lecture that day, exhausted from finals week.Only attending because attendance counted toward her final grade. She sat in the third row, notebook open, expecting to be bored within the first ten minutes. Instead, she found herself leaning forward. Genuinely fascinated by the way he explained something as dry as tariff schedules
