The words hit like a bruise. Ethan had been eight when the crash happened. Mark had been driving him to soccer when a truck drifted across the yellow line. Mark survived. Ethan didn’t. I was never allowed to identify the body. They said I was “too fragile.”
That night, I told Mark what Noah had said.
“Kids say things,” he murmured. “Maybe it’s how he’s coping.”
But something in my chest wouldn’t settle.
That weekend, I took Noah to the cemetery with white daisies. He stood stiffly in front of Ethan’s headstone.
“Mom… he isn’t there,” he whispered.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“He told me he’s not in there.”
Cold crept through me. I brushed it off as grief speaking through a child. But on Monday, Noah said it again.
“Ethan came back. By the fence.”
“He talked to me,” Noah added, then lowered his voice. “It’s a secret.”
