My wife vanished 20 years ago, leaving nothing but a note that said, “I hope you will forgive me someday.” I spent two decades waiting for answers. I never expected to find one hanging from a young woman’s neck in a grocery store. I was in the produce section last Monday afternoon, picking out fruits, when my entire life stopped making sense.
I saw a young woman. She was maybe 19 or 20, dark-haired, carefully turning apples over in her hands the way someone does when they actually care about what they’re choosing. I noticed her the way you notice anyone who reminds you of something you’ve lost.
She reached for another apple, and when the locket around her neck caught the light, I couldn’t breathe. It was silver. Small.
Oval. A green stone set slightly off-center. And along the left edge, a faint scratch from the day my wife, Lucy, caught it on a car door two weeks after I gave it to her.
I had given that locket to my wife on our fifth wedding anniversary, and she had never, not once, taken it off. “Excuse me,” I said, crossing the aisle toward the young woman. “I’m sorry to bother you.
Could you tell me where you got that locket?”
She touched it instinctively, the way people do when a stranger references something personal. The world around me faded. I need to take you back because none of what comes next makes any sense without it.
I’d known Lucy since we were 17. She had a way of laughing that made the room reorganize itself around her. I was in love with her before I had the vocabulary to name it properly.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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