Philip was forty three, the founder of a global financial analytics firm whose algorithms guided banks and governments alike. He had reached a level of success most people only read about, commanding influence, wealth, and admiration in equal measure. Yet none of it had meaning now, because the one person he would have traded it all for remained unreachable, present only in body.

Sixteen months earlier, a winter highway had rewritten their lives. A sudden skid. A violent impact. A moment that never ended. Philip survived. His wife Natalie did not. Lydia emerged from the wreckage without broken bones or visible injury, yet something inside her retreated completely, sealing her voice and her legs away as if they belonged to another life.