It stood on an easel beside my front door.
Clara.
My wife.
Smiling in the blue dress she had worn to Lily’s kindergarten graduation.
My heart stopped.
The taxi had barely come to a complete stop before I threw open the door.
My suitcase fell onto the sidewalk.
I didn’t even notice.
I ran toward the house.
My mother, Teresa, stepped out from beneath the canopy.
The moment she saw me, her entire face changed.
Then she began crying.
“Alex!”
She rushed toward me and wrapped both arms around me.
I could barely breathe.
“What happened?”
She pulled away.
Her eyes were swollen.
“You came too late.”
I stared at her.
“What do you mean?”
Her lips trembled.
“Clara passed away.”
Everything around me seemed to disappear.
The chairs.
The flowers.
The people.
Even the sound of traffic behind me.
“What?”
My mother gripped my shoulders.
“She died almost three days ago.”
Almost three days.
My mind refused to accept it.
I had spoken to Clara the morning I left.
She had complained that Lily refused to eat the crust on her toast.
She had reminded me to bring home some hotel shampoo because she liked the little bottles.
She had sounded completely normal.
Healthy.
Alive.
“What happened?” I demanded.
My mother’s mouth trembled again.
“She became ill.”
“What kind of illness?”
“It happened very quickly.”
“What does that mean?”
My voice rose, and several people nearby turned toward us.
My mother lowered her voice.
“Please, Alex. Not outside.”
I stared at her.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“We tried.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“We couldn’t reach you.”
I immediately pulled out my phone.
It had been placed in secure mode during part of the transportation assignment, but I had still received messages every evening.
There were missed calls from colleagues.
Airline notifications.
Advertisements.
But nothing from my family.
Nothing from my mother.
Nothing from Clara.
Nothing telling me that my wife was dead.
“My phone worked.”
My mother looked away.
That was when I noticed something.
She wasn’t looking at me anymore.
“Mr. Vance said your assignment couldn’t be interrupted,” she finally whispered.
Mr. Warren Vance was the executive vice president of Northstar Logistics, the company I’d worked for nine years.
He had personally approved the high-security transportation assignment that had taken me out of state.
I stared at my mother.
“Why would Warren Vance have anything to do with whether my family contacted me?”
She didn’t answer.
And that silence was the first thing that made me feel something other than grief.
Something colder.
Something was wrong.
Then a small figure appeared in the doorway.
“Daddy!”
Lily.
I dropped to my knees.
