My son was sixteen when an accident took him.
And my husband, Sam, never shed a tear.
Not in the hospital as the machines fell silent.
Not at the funeral where I clung to the coffin.
Not in the empty house where our boy’s laughter once lived.
I grieved loudly. Sam grieved quietly—into work, into chores, into a silence that split us apart.
I begged him to speak.
He stayed stone.
Resentment built, brick by brick, until our marriage felt trapped in cement.
Eventually, it cracked. We divorced. He remarried. Our grief carried us in opposite directions, as grief often does when it has nowhere to breathe.
Twelve years passed.
Then, one morning, the phone rang. Sam was gone. Sudden. No warning. No chance to mend the fractures left behind.
Days after his funeral, his new wife came to my door. Hands trembling, a cup of untouched tea in front of her, she said:
“There’s something you need to know.”
Continue reading on next page…