Chapter 1
Noah was only five.
He should have been inside, warm in his dinosaur pajamas, waiting for the silly airport snow globe I bought him from my business trip.
Instead, I saw him on my phone screen.
Behind iron bars.
In the backyard.
Crying.
His pajamas were dirty.
His hands shook as he reached through the cage toward the mud.
And there, soaked beneath the rain, was his mother’s teddy bear.
Laura’s teddy bear.
The one she had slept with during chemo.
The one she left for Noah before she died.
Vanessa stood beside the cage with her arms folded.
“If you want her memory,” she said, “stay outside.”
My blood went cold.
I had come home early to surprise my son.
I was still sitting in the car when I opened the backyard camera, expecting to see him playing.
Instead, I heard him sob.
“Daddy… help me.”
I ran.
I do not remember crossing the driveway.
I do not remember unlocking the gate.
I only remember Noah’s face when he saw me.
Hope and terror at the same time.
“Daddy!”
I yanked the latch open and pulled him into my arms.
His body was freezing.
He clung to my neck so tightly I could barely breathe.
“I called you,” he cried. “She said you wouldn’t come.”
I looked at Vanessa.
My fiancée.
The woman I had planned to marry in two weeks.
She lifted her chin.
“He was being dramatic.”
“He was in a cage.”
“It’s a play kennel.”
“You locked my son outside in the rain.”
“He needed to learn.”
I picked up Laura’s teddy bear.
Mud covered its face.
The stitched side had torn open.
Something small fell into my palm.
A USB drive.
Vanessa’s face went white.
My heart began pounding.
Laura had sewn this bear herself.
She must have hidden it before she died.
Vanessa stepped forward.
“Give me that.”
I closed my fist around the drive.
“No.”
Her mask cracked.
“Daniel, you don’t understand.”
I looked at my shivering son.
Then at the teddy bear.
May you like
Then at the woman who had locked him outside for loving his dead mother.
“No,” I said. “I think I finally do.”
