Grief does strange things to your mind. That’s what I told myself when I first saw her—Stacey, my late wife, buying ice cream for a man I’d never met.
Luke saw her too.
“Mommy!” he shrieked, wriggling out of my grip.
I watched in horror as Stacey’s face went pale. She dropped the cone, grabbed the man’s hand, and fled.
That night, I dug through old files until I found the death certificate. “Vehicle accident,” it stated. “No remains recovered.”
A detail I’d been too distraught to question before.
When I finally cornered Stacey outside her hotel, she didn’t bother denying it. “I was unhappy,” she said simply. “This seemed kinder than divorce.”
“Kinder?” My voice cracked. “You let your son cry himself to sleep every night!”
She had the decency to look ashamed. “I thought he’d forget me faster this way.”
As we drove home, Luke kept twisting in his car seat to peer out the back window. “Is Mommy following us?”
I adjusted the rearview mirror so he couldn’t see my tears. “No, buddy. But we’ll be okay.”
And we are. Just not in the way I ever expected.
