The call came during my business trip to Seattle. “There’s been an accident,” my father-in-law said, his voice hollow. “Stacey didn’t make it.” I returned home to find the funeral already over, her parents insisting it was “better this way.”
Two months of grief later, I took our son Luke to the beach, hoping the change of scenery would help us both heal. We built sandcastles and chased waves, and for the first time since losing Stacey, I heard my boy laugh again.
Then came the moment that upended everything. “Daddy! Mommy’s here!” Luke squealed, pointing to a woman with my wife’s chestnut hair and familiar gait. When she turned, my knees nearly gave out. Stacey’s eyes – the same hazel flecks I’d stared into for years – locked with mine in stunned recognition before she quickly disappeared into the crowd.
Tracking her down forced a confession more devastating than her supposed death. She’d staged everything – the accident, the funeral – to run away with her lover and their unborn child. “My parents helped me,” she admitted, as if this made her betrayal somehow noble.
The hardest part wasn’t learning my wife had faked her death. It was seeing Luke’s hopeful face crumple when he realized the mother he’d mourned had willingly left him behind.
