Last Thursday started like every other awful, quiet night I’ve had since my family fell apart. By midnight, I was scrubbing a clean counter just to avoid thinking too much—right up until three soft knocks on my front door turned my whole world inside out.
It was Thursday night. Late. The kind of late when nothing good happens. I was wiping the same spot on the counter for the third time, just to fill the silence, when I heard it.
Because that voice belonged to one person, and there was no way I could be hearing it now.
Three soft knocks.
A pause.
Then a tiny, trembling voice I hadn’t heard in two years.
“Mom… it’s me.”
The dish towel slipped from my hand.
For a second, the words didn’t make sense. I tried to make them make sense, but they were devoid of meaning. Then, my whole body went cold.
“Mom? Can you open?”
Because that voice belonged to one person, and there was no way I could be hearing it now.
It sounded like my son.
My son, who died at five years old. My son, whose tiny casket I’d kissed before they lowered it into the ground. My son, I’d begged and screamed and prayed for every night since.
Gone. For two years.
Another knock.
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