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.
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Gone. For two years.
Another knock.
“Mom? Can you open?”
I forced my legs to move down the hallway, gripping the wall as I went.
My throat closed. I couldn’t move. Grief had tricked me before—phantom footsteps, the flash of blonde hair at the grocery store, a laugh that wasn’t his.
But this voice wasn’t a memory turned into something I see out of the corner of my eye. It was sharp, and clear, and alive.
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Too alive.
I forced my legs to move down the hallway, gripping the wall as I went.
“Mommy?”
The word slipped under the door and cracked me open.
I unlocked it with shaking hands and opened it wide.
“Mommy?” he whispered. “I came home.”
My knees almost gave out.
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