Delilah lives a life she built from scratch, alone but steady, with her daughter and her business. But when she wakes one night to find a man asleep on her couch, the past she buried turns up uninvited. Some people vanish. Others come back broken. And some… come back for redemption.
The night I found a man sleeping on my couch started like any other.
Maya had gone to bed hours earlier, tucked beneath her favorite purple blanket, her cheeks warm from laughter and too many sips of hot cocoa. I’d spent the evening listening to my daughter and reviewing inventory reports for my business, Whisk & Willow, a boutique cake and confection company I started two years ago.
I named it after Maya, whose middle name is Willow. It represents her perfectly because she’s the soft strength that kept me standing when everything else fell apart.
It had taken blood, sweat, and a generous amount of ganache to build it into something that could support both of us.
Around 2:00 a.m., I woke up with a dry mouth and the odd sensation of being watched.
“You’re being silly, Delilah,” I told myself. “You need to get your mind straight, girl.”
I told myself that it was just the dry heat from the radiators and maybe a few too many almond caramels before bed.
I slipped quietly from my bed, careful not to disturb Maya as I padded down the stairs in thick socks and a worn hoodie. I didn’t turn on the hallway light. I didn’t need to. This was my home… every creaky step and corner belonged to me.
But I did turn on the living room light, thinking that it would be better to see into the kitchen compared to the harsh and too-bright kitchen light.
“You really need to change that bulb,” I told myself.
I turned to the living room. And then my entire body locked up.
There was a man lying on the couch.
Not just lying there… he was sleeping! He was curled into the cushions, his shoes off, legs tucked under a throw blanket. For a second, I couldn’t breathe. My throat tightened and I stumbled backward into the hallway table, sending a book clattering to the floor.
The man stirred.
His eyes opened slowly. And it took a second before I realized that there was something familiar about him.
No. No way. It couldn’t be!
“Ethan?” I gasped.
He blinked, groggy. His hair was a mess and his cheeks were sunken. His limbs looked stiff… and his fingers. Oh my goodness, his fingers. They were red and swollen, almost purple at the tips. He was wearing a torn windbreaker over a threadbare t-shirt and jeans that had seen better years.
He had no gloves. No hat. No… warmth.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said softly. “I’m sorry, Deli.”
“What the hell are you doing in my house, Ethan?”
“I… I still had a key,” he mumbled. “I thought I’d lost it… but it was in an old coat.”
“That doesn’t even remotely answer the question.”
He pushed himself upright with a wince, hands trembling.
“I didn’t know where else to go. Delilah, please. I just needed to get warm. I was freezing. The shelters are all full, and it’s below zero tonight. I slept here last night too. I was going to leave before you woke up, just like this morning.”
I stared at him, my heart hammering, one hand on my phone.
Two nights. He’d crept in two nights. I should’ve been angrier. I should’ve yelled, demanded answers, called the cops. But I didn’t. Maybe it was pity. Or maybe I just couldn’t believe how far he’d fallen…
“You’ve been breaking into my house?”
“It’s not like that, Delilah,” he whispered. “I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. I swear.”
Ethan was my ex-husband. Four years ago, he had chosen his tech startup over our family. I was 28, Maya was four, and he was too busy chasing investors to notice either of us disappearing into silence.
I asked him, once, if he’d be home for dinner.
“I have dinner meetings for the next two months,” he replied.
When I filed for divorce, he barely fought it. He sent flowers the day the papers were finalized. White lilies. For grief, apparently.
I laughed so hard I nearly threw up.
“You can stay,” I said finally, my voice thin. “Until the morning.”
“Thank you,” he said, curling back under the blanket like a child.
I went into Maya’s bedroom and locked the door behind me. I didn’t sleep the rest of the night.
When I came downstairs the next morning, Ethan was in the kitchen.
He was showered and dressed in clothes that didn’t belong to him, one of my oversized hoodies and a pair of too-short sweatpants that I kept for my period days.
He was making eggs, like he belonged in the space… The smell hit me first: real butter, the faint scorch of melted cheddar, the kind of breakfast you only make when you’re trying to earn something back.
Maya was sitting at the counter, legs swinging off the stool, staring at him like he was a ghost she wasn’t sure was real. She was still asleep when I’d gone into the bathroom.
“Sweetheart,” he said gently. “I made your eggs with cheese. Just like how you like them.”
“You… remember that?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.
I stood there, just inside the doorway, frozen in place. The sight was too familiar. Too surreal. It felt like walking into a memory I didn’t ask for. My jaw clenched.
The last time we’d all been in a kitchen together like this, Maya had still needed a booster seat.
Back then, he hadn’t noticed us properly. He didn’t know that she liked her milk with a straw and two ice cubes. He’d always been on his phone, one eye on a pitch deck or a spreadsheet.
I stepped in, tension sharp in my shoulders. My daughter turned to me, wide-eyed.
“Mommy… is Daddy staying?”
“No,” I said, looking Ethan in the eye. “He’s just visiting today.”
His smile faltered but he didn’t argue. It was a small mercy in the grand scheme of things.
I let him serve breakfast. I let him make Maya giggle with a silly face squeezed onto a slice of toast in ketchup. I let him stand there like he still belonged.
