Jack died while I was six months pregnant, leaving me with our four-year-old daughter, another baby on the way, and more unanswered questions than I ever expected.
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I was thirty-five, and our daughter Lucy still believed her father would somehow come home. During those difficult months, our days had become a collection of appointments, phone calls, household responsibilities, and small family routines. Jack tried to keep things light whenever he could.
“You know you don’t have to organize every second of the day,” he once told me.
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“I’m six months pregnant, Lucy is four, and everything has changed. Someone has to keep things organized.”
He smiled. “You’re impossible.”
“We’ve been together since high school. You knew that already.”
He laughed.
That was how we had always been. I worried about details, Jack found a way to make me smile, and neither of us liked talking about the things that frightened us.
In the weeks before he passed away, I noticed that Jack had become unusually private. He occasionally left the house without explaining where he was going and spent more time on his laptop.
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“Where were you?”
“Out.”
“For that long?”
“I had something to take care of.”
“What kind of something?”
He smiled. “The kind you’ll understand eventually.”
I wanted to push harder, but I also knew he was going through a difficult period. I decided to give him some space.
After he was gone, I wondered whether that decision had been a mistake.
A few days later, I returned to collect his belongings. Among his watch, charger, and personal items was a gray cardigan I didn’t recognize.
“This isn’t mine,” I said.
The nurse looked at it carefully.
“I thought it belonged to someone who had been visiting him.”
“What woman?”
“I assumed she was a family friend.”
I immediately remembered the unexplained trips and papers I had seen around the house.
“Do you know her name?”
The nurse shook her head.
