But I pressed it anyway. It rang five times before someone picked up.
“Hello?” My voice came out steadier than I felt. “This is Claire.
Michael’s wife. Who are you, and why was my husband messaging you?”
The line went dead.
I stared at the phone trembling in my hands. The fear I thought had died with Michael suddenly roared back to life, hungry and real.
For the next year, I was constantly looking over my shoulder and startling awake when the house creaked late at night.
I was waiting for her.
One night, I returned home from the library and parked in my driveway. As I gathered my bag, movement caught my eye.
Across the street, standing beneath the oak tree, was a woman.
Just standing there, watching my house, watching me.
I grabbed my phone to call the police, but when I looked up again, she was gone.
But no one ever knocked.
I was unraveling. My friend Sarah told me I needed to talk to someone, but how could I explain that my dead husband’s warning was coming true?
One evening, desperate for answers, I entered Michael’s study. I’d avoided it since he died, and the room looked exactly as he’d left it.
I sank into his chair and whispered to the empty room, “What were you hiding from me?”
Carefully, I opened the frame’s backing and slid out the photo.
Beneath it was a photo of Michael taken in his 20s, I guessed. He was standing beside a woman I’d never seen before, and she was holding a baby swaddled in a pink blanket.
My thoughts raced. Who was this woman?
This baby? Had Michael had another family before me? During our marriage?
I fetched Michael’s phone.
I’d kept it all this time because it was proof of his weird connection to A. I took a picture of the photo and sent it to the mysterious contact.
Three seconds later, a reply: Are you trying to rub it in my face?
Before I could type a response, the message vanished. Deleted.
My pulse hammered in my ears.
I knew now what Michael had been scared of.
On the anniversary of Michael’s death, I visited his grave.
The cemetery was quiet, the ground damp from morning rain. I kneeled beside the headstone and arranged fresh flowers, white roses like the ones from our wedding.
“I wish you’d just told me about them,” I whispered.
“Which of them is A? The woman, or the baby? Why…”
I trailed off with a sigh.
I had so many questions, but it was pointless to ask them.
The sky was gray when I drove home. The silence inside the house felt heavier than usual, pressing down on my shoulders. I set my keys on the entry table and kicked off my shoes.
Then came the knock.
My heart stopped.
I knew somehow that it was her. For a moment, I considered not answering, but I’d been waiting five years for this, hadn’t I?
I opened the door.
A pale woman in her mid-20s stood on my porch. She was soaked from the rain, and her expression was serious, guarded.
Her hands were behind her back.
“It’s been five years,” she said quietly. “And I don’t know if I’m ready, but I can’t wait anymore.”
I looked at her face, studying the shape of her jaw and nose, the curve of her brow.
“Ashley,” she replied. “My name’s Ashley.”
Michael’s warning crashed through my memory like a wave.
She will come for you. I don’t know what she’ll do.
But Ashley offered a faint smile; small, sad. “It’s time we spoke.
Just you and me. Can I come inside?”
Before I could respond, a voice shouted from the street.
A young man, rain-drenched and frantic, rushed up my walkway. He was breathing hard.
“She’s not responsible for the decisions your father made,” he said to her, his eyes pleading.
“Please, don’t do something you’ll regret.”
Ashley’s jaw tightened. “Stay out of it, Liam.”
“No!” He moved closer, his voice breaking. “I love you too much to watch you turn into a monster.
Look at her!” He gestured toward me. “She looks like a nice person. If you just talk to her…”
“What?” Her voice cracked.
“She’ll hug me and tell me there’s a room full of all the birthday and Christmas gifts Michael bought for me over the years but never got to give me? That he actually loved me so much, even though he never called or visited?”
The words hit me like a punch to the gut. Understanding crashed over me, cold and sudden.
“You’re the baby in that photo,” I whispered.
“You’re Michael’s daughter, aren’t you?”
But then her face hardened again. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised he never told you.”
Liam stepped forward, his hands gentle on Ashley’s shoulders. “See?
You can’t blame her.”
Ashley shook her head. A single tear streaked down her cheek. “She took him from us.
If it weren’t for her, he might’ve stayed.”
I looked at this young woman, this stranger who carried my husband’s features in her face, and saw past the rage into something deeper: a wounded little girl, desperate for answers that only a dead man could give.
Ashley let out a low moan and folded in on herself. Liam caught her, holding her as sobs wracked her body. The sound was horrible — raw grief, years in the making.
I stepped onto the porch, rain plastering my hair to my face.
“There’s nothing I can do to change the past, but maybe together, we can find a way to make peace with it.”
Liam looked up and met my eyes. Gratitude shone there.
Ashley sniffled. Her shoulders rose and fell with shaky breaths.
For a long moment, she said nothing.
Then, slowly, she nodded.
I opened the door wider, stepping aside. For the first time in five years, Michael’s last words no longer haunted me.
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