I was buttoning up my coat in the garage, my fingers clumsy and slow, as if grief itself had settled into my joints, when the sound of running footsteps shattered the quiet. The coat was black and stiff, bought hastily two days earlier, and it still smelled faintly of the department store—sharp, unfamiliar, nothing like the soft wool Michael used to tease me for wearing year after year. Forty-two years of marriage distilled into a single morning, into a funeral I was about to attend alone.

The garage felt cavernous without him, every echo too loud, every breath too noticeable. I had already picked up my keys, already opened the driver’s door, when the door from the house flew open with a bang so loud it made me flinch. My grandson Lucas burst in, his face drained of all color, eyes wide and glassy, his chest heaving as if he’d run a mile. “Grandma, don’t start the car! Please, don’t!” he shouted, his voice cracking in a way that made my heart seize. I froze, the key hovering inches from the ignition. For a moment, my mind couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing—this wasn’t a tantrum, wasn’t teenage drama.