The stormy night that claimed my husband’s life began as nothing more than a relentless downpour, the kind that turns the world into a blurred landscape of gray and shadow. When the officers arrived at my door to tell me that Evan’s truck had spun out on a slick highway three towns over, my world collapsed into a singular, agonizing silence. They told me he had died instantly, a phrase meant to offer mercy but one that only underscored the absolute finality of my loss. I was left alone to navigate a sea of mounting medical bills and the care of our five-year-old son, Oliver, whose rare condition required treatments we could barely afford.

For weeks, grief was my only companion. I worked double shifts at a diner and spent my nights scrubbing office floors, my body aching with a fatigue that reached into my very bones. Every morning, Oliver would ask when Daddy was coming home, and every morning, I had to break his heart anew. He would sit by the window at night, watching for headlights that never materialized, convinced that the world hadn’t truly stolen his father. I moved through my days like a specter, crying only in the shower so the sound

The phone slipped from my numb fingers, clattering onto the hardwood floor. My heart hammered against my ribs with such violence that I felt lightheaded. When I finally gathered the courage to pick it up, my hands shook so violently I could barely type. I assumed it was a cruel prank, a ghost in the machine, or a stranger who had been assigned his old number. I lashed out, texting back that the owner of the phone was dead and that this joke was sick. The reply was instantaneous and chilling: “No.”

Driven by a desperate, foolish hope and a simmering rage, I demanded proof. The person on the other end sent an address in Cedar Ridge—the very town where Evan had supposedly been working his last construction job. I didn’t sleep that night. The next morning, I left Oliver with my mother and drove toward the edge of the state, the rain following me like a persistent memory.