Weeks before leaving for a work trip to Kansas, Vikesh Patel learned he was going to be a father. Raised in a tight-knit family in Havre de Grace, Patel always wanted kids. He and his wife, Audrey, planned to move from their apartment in Arlington, Virginia, to a house in Maryland, where their children could grow up near his parents. “Raising a family would have been the best years of his life,” Audrey said. He never got that chance.