It was 9:47 PM when Marcus pulled into the driveway.
He had been awake since 5:30 that morning.
By 6:00, he was already at the warehouse.
The first shift had been twelve hours of lifting boxes, moving pallets, checking inventory, and walking back and forth across the concrete floor until his legs felt like they didn’t belong to him anymore.
Then, just when he thought he was finally going home, his supervisor had stopped him.
There had been a problem with one of the evening shipments.
A meeting.
An hour that turned into two.
By the time Marcus finally climbed into his truck, his phone battery was almost dead, his shoulders were stiff, and his stomach was growling.
All he wanted was a shower.
A quiet dinner.
And Elena.
His wife was eight months pregnant with their first child, a little girl they had already named Sofia.
Marcus had spent the entire day thinking about her.
He pictured her lying on the couch with her swollen feet elevated.
Maybe she would complain about Sofia kicking her ribs.
Maybe she would tell him that she had spent twenty minutes trying to find a comfortable position and had failed.
Maybe she’d laugh when he told her about something ridiculous that had happened at work.
