Then one Tuesday in November, my phone rang at two in the morning.
I almost ignored it.
Then I saw Adrian’s name.
When I answered, he didn’t say hello.
He made a sound.
Not quite a word.
I sat up.
“Adrian?”
Another broken breath.
Then:
“She’s gone.”
I swung my feet onto the cold floor.
“What?”
“She’s gone, Ethan.”
His wife had collapsed at home.
An aneurysm.
No warning.
By the time emergency services arrived, there was nothing anyone could do.
Thirty-one years old.
That was all.
I drove to the hospital, but Adrian told me not to come.
He said he needed to get home before Noah woke.
“I’ll come in the morning.”
“No.”
“Adrian.”
“I said no.”
I should have ignored him.
I didn’t.
That decision has bothered me for fourteen years.
At seven the next morning, I drove across Bellmere carrying two coffees and a bag of breakfast sandwiches.
I knocked.
Nothing.
Again.
Still nothing.
The front door was unlocked.
“Adrian?”
The television was playing cartoons.
Noah sat on the rug in dinosaur pajamas.
Plastic bowl between his knees.
Dry cereal.
He looked at me.
