I had spent years learning how to live with unanswered questions. Then one ordinary afternoon at a gas station, something happened that made all of them come rushing back.
I still remember the sound of the front door closing.
It was not loud. Not dramatic. Just one simple click on the evening my son turned eighteen. At the time, I barely looked up from the kitchen table. I was folding napkins from the little birthday dinner I had tried so hard to make special, pretending not to notice how quiet he had been all day.
“Ethan?” I called. “Did you take the trash out?”
No answer.
I smiled to myself at first. “You’d better not be sneaking off to meet your friends without eating the cake.”
Still nothing.
Something in my chest tightened. It was small, just a flicker, but I felt it.
I walked into the hallway, wiping my hands on a dish towel. His jacket was gone from the hook. The old sneakers he wore everywhere were gone, too. His room was half-open, and when I pushed the door wider, the air inside felt wrong. Too still. Too empty.
