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.
“Ethan?”
His bed was made. His desk was clean. And the drawer where he kept his wallet and watch stood open. I remember standing there, frozen, staring at that open drawer as if it could explain everything.
Then I started moving.
I checked the backyard. The garage. I called his phone once, then twice, then ten times. I sent messages that grew less angry and more desperate with each minute.
Where are you?
Read more on the next page…
