I stopped believing in ghosts three years ago, the day my husband died.
After fifty-five years of marriage, Edward was gone in a single afternoon. The doctor said his heart failed quickly, that he didn’t suffer. People always say that, as if it’s meant to soften the blow. It doesn’t. What it does is leave behind a silence so dense it feels physical, like living underwater—every sound muffled, every movement heavy.
I’m Dorothy. I’m seventy-eight. Widowhood stretches time in strange, cruel ways. Some days crawl so slowly they ache. Others vanish entirely. You forget meals. You forget dates. You forget why you walked into a room. But you never forget the shape of the person you loved—their outline still etched into the air beside you.
Edward had habits that drove me mad. Socks abandoned on the bathroom floor. Long silences during arguments. Opinions about everything from politics to lawn care. And yet, I loved him with a devotion so deep it felt permanent. I believed our life together was complete—solid, sealed, finished exactly as it was meant to be.
That belief shattered in the produce aisle of a grocery store on a bitter January morning.
I hadn’t gone shopping in far too long. The refrigerator was bare except for condiments and expired milk. I moved slowly through the aisles, joints stiff, mind drifting. That’s when I heard a man’s voice—strained, gentle, trying not to break.
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