My husband went missing in 2005. Yesterday, I got a birthday card from him that said, «I never left — look in the basement.»…

All he said was, okay. Brenna didn’t ask too many questions either, but I could see it in her eyes, the worry, the hurt. She made up the guest bed without a word, then sat next to me on the couch with a mug of tea and a blanket.

We watched reruns of old shows, neither of us really watching. I think we both knew I wasn’t going back to the same life. And yet, I did return home Sunday night.

I opened the front door to find the lights off, the TV still on, and a plate of food left untouched on the counter. Ellis wasn’t there. The house was so quiet, it felt like it had forgotten how to breathe.

I stood in the kitchen for a long time, waiting for something, a noise, a door creak, a voice, but nothing came. Then came the morning that finally shattered the illusion that this was still a marriage. It was a Tuesday, June 21st.

I remember because it was the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, though it ended up feeling like the darkest. Ellis said he was heading to the store to get milk. I barely looked up from my gardening gloves as I nodded.

He left the door half open behind him. I finished trimming my house plants, wiped down the counter, and waited for the sound of the car returning. It never did.

By evening, I was pacing. By midnight, I called his phone, straight to voicemail. I left one message, then another, then five more.

By morning, I reported him missing. His wallet was found two days later in the front seat of his car, parked off a dirt road an hour north. The keys were still in the ignition.

There were no signs of a struggle, no footprints, no witnesses. The police said it looked like suicide. He may have walked into the river, they told me.

Sometimes people choose remote spots for privacy, but he left no note, no warning, no goodbye. Just a toothbrush in the bathroom, a pair of shoes by the back door, and an empty bed that would stay that way for years. Everyone assumed I was done, that I’d move on, sell the house, rebuild, heal.

But I didn’t, because I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t even broken. I was hollow, quietly shattered, and that was somehow worse.

After Ellis vanished, time stopped meaning anything. The first few weeks were a blur of questions, sympathy and casseroles. People I hadn’t spoken to in years sent cards.

Brenna flew in and stayed for a while. The neighbors mowed my lawn without asking. Church ladies dropped off tuna noodle bake and peach cobbler with handwritten prayers taped to the foil lids.

But by the second month, the calls slowed down. By the third, people stopped asking for updates. You’ll get through this, they’d say, or worse.

Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise. No one says that out loud to a widow, but I wasn’t a widow, not technically. I was something else, something harder to define.

A wife with no husband, a life on pause, a question with no answer. I didn’t have a funeral, not right away. For months, I refused to believe he was gone.

My brain kept twisting logic into knots. Maybe he’d had a breakdown. Maybe he was in a hospital with amnesia.

Maybe he’d run off and regretted it. Every time the phone rang, a tiny part of me thought it would be him, explaining, apologizing, coming home. But the phone only ever brought bills, telemarketers, or worse, silence.

Eventually, I gave in to the pressure. We held a memorial, no body, just a framed photo of Ellis from our last vacation in the Poconos, standing on a dock, waving, smiling like nothing was wrong. I stood beside that picture and shook hands with people who told me how strong I was.

I don’t remember anything I said. I just remember the weight of my black dress and how Brenna gripped my hand so hard it left crescent marks on my skin. After the service, I went home and crawled into bed with all my clothes still on.

I stared at the ceiling fan and listened to it click, click, click as it turned, hypnotizing me into stillness. I stopped answering the door, stopped checking the mail, stopped going to the grocery store. My fridge filled with spoiled leftovers and expired yogurt.

I survived on saltines, canned peaches, and black tea. Sometimes I didn’t eat at all. I let the garden go.

The weeds grew wild, creeping over the stone path we’d laid together years ago. I watched them swallow the flowers one by one from the kitchen window, too tired to stop them. At night, I’d sit in his chair by the fireplace, clutching one of his old sweatshirts like it might still carry his scent.

It didn’t. It smelled like dust and fabric softener. Still, I held it…