After two weeks, I decided to speak to a child psychologist. She told me that children sometimes find ways to cope with loss, and that I shouldn’t frighten him or dismiss his feelings.
So I stopped asking questions.
Until one rainy Thursday night.
I woke up at 2:17 AM and noticed Noah’s bedroom door was open.
His bed was empty.
I rushed downstairs.
There he was, sitting at the dining table in his pajamas, staring at the empty chair.
“NOAH! What are you doing down here?”
He raised one finger to his lips.
“Shhh, Daddy. You’ll scare her away.”
Then I heard it.
Three soft knocks at the front door.
My entire body went cold.
Noah jumped out of his chair and ran toward the entrance.
“Mommy!” he cried.
I grabbed him before he could open the door.
Through the frosted glass, I saw the silhouette of a woman.
A woman wearing the same long coat my wife had been buried in.
I couldn’t breathe.
Then my phone vibrated.
A message had arrived from an unknown number.
It contained only one sentence:
“Don’t let him open the door. Ask him where he got the photograph.”
I looked at Noah.
“What photograph?”
He slowly reached into his pajama pocket and handed me a small, folded picture.
It was a photograph of my wife.
But it wasn’t one I’d ever seen before.
On the back, in my wife’s handwriting, were six words that made my knees buckle:
“If I come back, it isn’t me.”
The knocking stopped.
The silhouette disappeared.
And from the darkness behind us, my son’s voice whispered:
“Daddy… why did Mommy just walk out of your bedroom?”
I turned around.
At the top of the stairs, a woman stood smiling at us.
She had my wife’s face.
And she was holding a knife.
What would YOU do if the person you loved most came back… but something about them wasn’t right?
