I Took a Job to Move On From My Wife's Death, But My New Boss Is My Old College Crush

The cursor blinked in the empty field: Reason for leaving last position. Liam’s fingers hovered, then typed: Personal leave. He deleted it. Typed: Career break. Deleted that too. The truth—My wife died and I stopped functioning—wasn’t listed in the dropdown options.

He left it blank and scrolled down. Upload CV. He clicked the button, watched the progress bar fill, and felt nothing. The job description had promised solitude: maintain digital archives, minimal client contact, flexible hours. A tomb for the living. He was qualified. He was also forty-two and hadn’t opened AutoCAD since Sarah’s diagnosis.

Behind the laptop, the living room held its breath. Her books still crowded the low shelf—oncology journals, dog-eared novels, a field guide to urban lichen she’d bought on their honeymoon. The photograph had been moved three times in two years: bedside table (too sharp), drawer (cowardly), hallway (accusatory). Now it lived beside the router, a domestic afterthought. Sarah grinned at the camera, wind flattening her hair against the Cliffs of Moher, one hand raised against the Atlantic glare. The image was sun-bleached; her teeth looked phosphorescent.

Liam’s thumb found the trackpad. Submit application. A dialogue box: Are you sure? He exhaled through his teeth and clicked yes. The screen refreshed to a thank-you page decorated with a minimalist skyline. He closed the lid.

The apartment answered with silence. He stood, joints stiff from disuse, and walked the four steps to the kitchen. The kettle required descaling; he boiled it anyway. While it rumbled, he opened the fridge, stared at a single jar of marmalade, shut the door. The kettle clicked off. He didn’t move.

Instead he returned to the living room and picked up the photograph. The glass was cool, smudged with the oil of previous fingerprints. He traced the outline of her shoulder, the place where his hand had rested the day it was taken. You’d tell me to take the job, he thought. You’d say, “Stop being a ghost in your own life.” The words formed so clearly he almost heard them, and the familiarity of that imagined voice—practical, amused—sent a spike of pain through his sternum.

He set the frame face-down, then immediately turned it upright again. A compromise: she could see the room, he could avoid her eyes. The gesture felt criminal and necessary in equal measure.

His phone buzzed: Application received. He deleted the notification. Outside, dusk gathered over the canal, turning the water the color of old pewter. Somewhere a bicycle bell rang twice, the sound thin and evaporating. Liam sat back at the table, opened the laptop, and began drafting a cover letter for a different posting—library assistant, night shift—before stopping halfway through. The words kept rearranging themselves into an apology he hadn’t meant to write.

The building was all glass and right angles, a crystalline growth against the Dublin skyline. Liam paused at the revolving door, watching his reflection fragment and reassemble with each rotation. His suit felt borrowed—the sleeves too short, the shoulders too wide. He hadn't worn it since Sarah's funeral.

The reception area breathed money. White leather sofas floated on a polished concrete floor. Behind the desk, a woman with perfect eyebrows directed him to the fourth floor without looking up from her screen. The lift moved in silence, numbers climbing.

Glass walls. Everywhere, glass walls. Through them he saw open-plan desking, standing desks, young architects hunched over glowing monitors. The conference room they showed him into had a view of the canal, the same water he'd watched from his apartment, transformed here into an architectural feature.

He sat. The chair was ergonomic, designed for bodies that hadn't spent two years collapsing into themselves. His hands found the edge of the table—some pale wood, probably Scandinavian, probably cost more than his monthly rent.

The door opened.

She wore navy. A blazer that fit her like it had been sewn on, trousers that ended just above ankle boots. Her hair was shorter now, falling just below her jaw in a clean line that made her look like someone who made decisions quickly. But it was the same face—those cheekbones that had made him stupid in lectures, the mouth that always looked like it knew something he didn't.

"Mr. Murphy."

Not Liam. Not yet. She extended her hand across the table and he took it—her grip firm, professional, but her palm was slightly damp. She was nervous. The realization hit him like vertigo.

"Ms. Delaney."

They released each other's hands too quickly. She sat, opened a leather portfolio. Her pen was matte black, expensive. When she looked down at his CV, he watched her absorb the gap in employment, the dates that didn't align, the references from a life he'd stopped living.

"You studied at UCD," she said, not looking up.

"Same time as you."

Now she met his eyes. For a moment—less than a second—something flickered across her face. Recognition, yes, but something else. Something that made him remember sitting three rows behind her in Architectural History, how she'd once turned around to borrow a pen and he'd been unable to speak for the rest of the lecture.

"I remember," she said. The words came out softer than the others. Then her shoulders squared. "Though your experience seems somewhat... dated."

The interview began.

She began with the obvious. “Two years is a long time to be away from practice. How do you explain it?”

Liam felt the photograph’s weight in his pocket—he’d slid it in at the last minute, a talisman he now regretted. “Personal circumstances,” he said. “They’re resolved.”

Elara’s pen hovered. “Resolved in what sense?”

“In the sense that I’m here.” The words came out flatter than he intended, like a slab laid without mortar. He watched her note something in the margin of his CV, a single vertical line that might have been either approval or condemnation.

She moved to software. “Which version of Revit did you last use?”

“Twenty-twenty.”

“We’re on twenty-four. You realize the gap?”

“I can close it.”

“How quickly?”

“However quickly you need.”

She looked up then, eyes the same storm-grey he remembered, but harder, as if the years had added a laminate. “That’s not an answer, Liam. That’s deflection.”

He felt heat rise in his throat. “I’m not deflecting. I’m stating that learning curves don’t frighten me.”

A pause. She clicked the pen closed, opened it again. “The archive is chaotic. We’re preparing for a retrospective exhibition in eight weeks. I need someone who can locate every drawing we’ve produced since 2015, tag it, and build a searchable database. Alone. Can you do that?”

“Yes.”

“Without supervision.”

“Yes.”

“Without emotional collapse if you discover a deadline you forgot.”

The sentence landed like a slap. He swallowed once. “I’m not fragile.”

“I never said you were.” She slid a single sheet across the table—probation terms, bullet points, end date. “Three-month trial. Half salary until review. If the archive isn’t immaculate by week eight, we part ways. No notice.”

He read the page twice, though the words barely registered. “You’re offering this now?”

“The firm is hemorrhaging billable hours on document hunts. You’re available. It’s arithmetic.” Her voice stayed level, but her left hand had curled into a fist on her knee, knuckles pale. “Take it or leave it.”

He thought of the empty fridge, the kettle’s scale, the photograph staring at the router. “I’ll take it.”

“Monday. Eight-thirty. Bring your own laptop; IT won’t issue one until month two.” She stood, extending the same hand as before. This time her grip was colder. “Welcome back to the living.”

He wasn’t sure whether she meant the profession or something larger. Before he could decide, she had turned to the glass wall, already dialing someone on her phone, her back a closed door more final than any wooden one.