The police searched for months.
They checked traffic cameras, hospitals, bus stations, airports, and empty roads. Volunteers walked fields with flashlights. Flyers with Nina's smiling face appeared in grocery stores, laundromats, churches, and gas stations.
I gave interviews I barely remembered afterward. I stood beside Aileen and Frank while reporters asked if Nina had enemies, secrets, or reasons to run.
I always answered the same way.
"No. She was happy."
Eventually, everyone told me to move on, but I never truly could.
How do you bury someone when there is no body? How do you grieve a woman who might still be somewhere under the same sky?
Some people lose their spouse to death. I lost mine to a question.
Years passed. My hair darkened, then began to gray at the temples. Friends stopped inviting me to weddings because they did not know what to say. My parents aged. Nina's parents moved away after Aileen told me the town had become "one large wound."
I worked. I ate. I paid bills.
I smiled when expected.
But every morning, some small part of me still woke up and reached across an empty bed.
Seventeen years later, I was on a business trip nearly 1,300 miles from home. I had driven too long, slept too little, and survived on gas station coffee that tasted like burnt regret. The trip was supposed to be simple: meet a client, sign papers, drive back, and return to my quiet life.
It was late afternoon when I stopped at a small gas station to grab a coffee before getting back on the road.
The place sat off a two-lane highway, with cracked pavement and a faded red sign buzzing above the pumps.
Inside, the air smelled like hot dogs, floor cleaner, and old coffee. A radio played low behind the counter. I picked up a paper cup, filled it from the machine, and tried not to think about how tired I was.
