Four years had passed, but there were mornings when I still expected to hear her footsteps running down the hallway.
Sometimes grief behaves strangely.
It doesn’t always arrive as tears.
Sometimes it appears as an empty chair.
A song on the radio.
A familiar perfume.
A photograph you weren’t prepared to see.
And sometimes, it comes in dreams.
My dream started several months before I became pregnant.
Every night, I found myself standing in a dark hallway.
I could never see where I was.
There was always a faint light at the end.
And somewhere beyond that light, a baby was crying.
Not screaming.
Not frightened.
Just crying softly.
Waiting.
Every time I tried to walk toward the sound, my feet felt heavy.
Then, just before I reached the door at the end of the hallway, I would hear Emily.
“Mom.”
I would stop.
“Emily?”
“Mom, you have to find him.”
