As we left the grave, my son screamed, “Mom is cold! I felt her hand!” My sister hissed, “Stop this embarrassment, she’s gone,” trying to drag him away. I ignored her and grabbed a shovel. I dug until my hands bled. When the lid finally popped open, the crowd froze in horror. My wife’s eyes were wide open, and the desperate scratches on the inside of the lid revealed a truth that made the police arrest my sister instantly

“Noah,” I knelt down, ignoring the mud soaking into the knees of my trousers. I grabbed his shoulders, trying to force him to look at me, to transfer some of my grim acceptance into him. “Mom is at peace now. Her body… it stopped working. The doctors told us. Remember?”

“The doctors are wrong!” he shrieked, struggling against my grip. He pointed a shaking finger at the coffin, which was now being secured by the straps. “She hates the dark! She doesn’t like being alone!”

That sentence hit me like a physical blow to the chest.

She hates the dark.

My breath hitched. The world seemed to tilt on its axis.

Elena had suffered from a debilitating phobia of the dark since childhood. It wasn’t something we spoke about publicly. It was a private vulnerability. Every night, for the ten years we had been married, she slept with a warm-light lamp on the bedside table. If the bulb blew out, she would wake up in a panic.