When Allie hears her daughter say, “I miss you, Daddy,” her world crumbles. Her husband has been dead for 18 years—or so she thought. As disturbing truths emerge, Allie must confront the past and the lies that have shaped their entire lives.

My husband died when our daughter, Susie, was just two weeks old.

A car accident. That’s what I was told. One moment, Charles was kissing my forehead as he went out for a quick shopping trip. The next, I was shaking a police officer’s hand, struggling to understand the words that made no sense.

He was gone. That’s how it happened.

I was 23 years old. Grief clung to me like a second skin. Worse still, I was holding a newborn who needed more than my broken nature could offer. Then Charles’s mother, Diane, stepped in. She worked in the mayor’s office and promised to “make things easier for me.”

I didn’t argue. I didn’t even ask questions.

I just nodded as the funeral took place behind a closed casket. She insisted on a quick cremation. She was the one who called. I stayed in bed, holding Susie, letting Diane smooth out the cracks in my world like wallpaper on rotting walls.

I never saw his body.

I told myself it didn’t matter anymore.
Closed casket funeral | Source: Midjourney