It tugged at her blue coat, rattled the dry leaves at her feet, and pushed her forward… straight toward the place she came every week. The place where her life had split clean down the middle.

She didn’t come for drama. She came to talk.
People who’ve never buried someone they loved don’t understand that talking to a grave stops being strange after the second or third visit. At some point it becomes survival.

She stood before the headstone, one hand on her lower back, the other resting protectively on her swollen stomach. Her breath trembled as she whispered:

“I’m here. Can you hear me today?”

Her voice cracked—not from tears, but from exhaustion. The due date was coming fast, and every trip out here felt like walking barefoot across old memories.

She took a breath, ready to begin her quiet monologue, when something caught her eye.

A wallet.

Right on top of the stone.
Not dusty. Not weather-worn.
Fresh. Clean. Placed there recently.

“What is this…?” she murmured, glancing around.

The cemetery was empty. Only wind and the creak of old wooden crosses carried through the air.

She reached for the wallet slowly, like it might bite. And for a heartbeat—an insane heartbeat—she felt cold radiating from it. A wrong sort of cold. A cold that comes from being watched.

She opened it.

And the world around her didn’t just spin—it buckled.

Inside was a photograph.

Not old. Not faded.
A brand-new snapshot taken just days ago. She recognized the streetlight behind him, the convenience store sign, the gas station on the edge of town.

And there he was.

Her husband.
The man she buried.
The man whose grave she was touching right now.

Alive.

Standing beside a black SUV, talking to someone just outside the frame.

Her breath jammed in her throat. A sound tore out of her—raw and broken, the kind of sound a person makes only when reality decides to turn on them.

She fumbled through the wallet, her hands shaking so badly the leather nearly slipped from her grip.
More items.

A plane ticket.
A folded map with a red circle around a town she’d never heard of.
And a note.

Just one line.
Written in his unmistakable handwriting—steady, confident, very much alive:

“Don’t come alone again. They might be watching you.”

Her knees didn’t give out gracefully.
They dropped her like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

The cold ground hit her palms, and her whole body curled forward, instinctively protecting the baby even as her mind split open.

She stared at the headstone—stone cold, suddenly meaningless.

“You’re alive?” she whispered hoarsely. “You’re alive?!”

Memories slammed into her with merciless clarity:

The rushed funeral.
The closed casket.
The strange silence from the hospital.
Her husband’s coworkers avoiding her eyes.
The lawyer who spoke too quickly, too cleanly, like he rehearsed every word.

Back then she was too pregnant, too shattered, too trusting to question anything.

But now?

Now the truth was sitting in her lap, heavy as the child growing inside her.

She rose slowly, gripping the wallet so hard her knuckles blanched. Something inside her shifted—something primal, sharp, unbreakable.

Because if he was alive…
If he’d chosen to be dead for them…
If someone was watching her…

Then this wasn’t grief anymore.

This was a hunt.

And she wasn’t the prey.

She took one last look at the grave—no, at the lie carved in stone—and whispered:

“You should have stayed dead. Now I’m coming for the truth.”

And the wind, for the first time in months, didn’t push her forward.
It stepped out of her way.