The video stuttered, freezing on a figure half-hidden by rain. Someone knelt at her son’s grave, fingertips brushing the carved letters as if memorizing them. Ellen leaned closer to the screen, heart hammering. The timestamp read 2:37 a.m., long after the cemetery gates were locked. Someone had been there again.
She grabbed her coat and drove through the fog to the cemetery, headlights cutting narrow tunnels through mist. The moment she reached the headstone, she saw it: a new toy car, bright blue, glistening with dew. Her pulse thudded. Whoever left it knew exactly what Sam loved most.
Kneeling, Ellen ran her palm over the smoothed earth. It seemed a deliberate act—loving, almost reverent. “Who are you?” she whispered into the dark. For a moment, she feared the answer: a stranger, a thief of memory. But another part of her, the lonelier one, hoped it wasn’t just the wind rearranging what she loved.