He called it The Mosaic of a Life .

And that, he decided, was a masterpiece in itself.

Elara’s fingers twitched. She looked down. For a long moment, nothing. Then her lips parted.

Ed Mosaic walked home alone that night, his own heart a little less broken. He understood now why he’d never married, why he had no children of his own. He wasn’t meant to collect pieces for himself. He was meant to show other people how to hold their own fragments together.

One gray October morning, a young woman named Lily burst through his door, clutching a small cardboard box. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but her jaw was set with the kind of stubborn hope that Ed recognized all too well.