Christmas Eve fell on a Tuesday, and I was running late. I’d worked the weekend shift at the hospital, and Tuesday was supposed to be my first real break in three weeks—time to wrap presents, prepare dinner, and somehow get through the holiday without breaking down in front of my kids every time they mentioned their father.
My name is Sarah Mitchell. I’m thirty-eight years old, a nurse, a widow for eight months, and the mother of two children who still ask if Daddy is watching from heaven. The answer is always yes, even when I’m not sure I believe it myself.
I was almost done with the presents when I realized I’d forgotten to mail the package to Marcus’s mother. Ruth was eighty-three, living in an assisted living facility in Arizona, and her mind was going the same way her son’s body had gone—slowly, then all at once. She still asked about Marcus every time I called, forgetting each time that he was gone, making me tell her again and again that her son had died of cancer. It was torture, but I couldn’t stop calling. Ruth was the last piece of Marcus I had left outside of my children.
The post office closed at noon on Christmas Eve. It was eleven-fifteen when I grabbed my coat, the package, and my keys, and drove the ten minutes into town.
The post office shared a parking lot with the Greyhound bus station, one of those small-town arrangements where everything is crammed together. I’d just come out after mailing Ruth’s package, my mind already racing through everything I still needed to do, when something made me look toward the bus depot.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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