The phone rang at three in the morning, a time when the world feels thin and every sound is too loud.
I saw the name—Stacey—and my thumb hovered over the red button.
She had been my closest friend once, the one who held my babies while I cried about Alan, the same Alan she later married.
But something in my chest said listen, so I slid the bar and heard her voice crack like thin ice:
“I’m afraid. Can I come to you? Please.”
One sentence, and the past I had locked away rattled its cage.
She arrived in an old hoodie, no coat, clutching a folder against her stomach as if it might explode.
I made tea because that is what you do when you don’t know what else to do.
She kept looking at the hallway, half expecting my daughters to appear, but they were at their dad’s that week—safe, unaware their former aunt was now the woman who had taken their father’s name.
When she finally opened the folder I saw Alan’s tidy handwriting on page after page: dates, hair colors, restaurants, little stars beside each woman’s first name.
