“Your wife saved my daughter’s life.”
For a second, I forgot how to breathe.
“My wife?” I said. “Emily never mentioned you.”
He shook his head slowly.
“She didn’t know me,” he said. “At least, not really. She probably didn’t even remember my face. But I never forgot hers.”
Then he glanced at the grass beside the headstone.
“Can I tell you what happened?”
I should have said no.
I should have walked away.
But something in his voice stopped me.
So we sat there, on opposite sides of my wife’s grave — me, her husband of twenty years, and this stranger who somehow carried a piece of her story I had never known.
His name was Mike.
He was forty-seven, a mechanic, and a single father.
