It took me several seconds to recognize her.
“Sadie?”
Her eyes went wide.
Sadie Morrison dated Caleb his whole senior year of high school. She was seventeen. He was eighteen. For almost a year, she was everywhere in our lives. At our dinner table every Tuesday. On our couch for movie nights. Sitting with Caleb on the back steps, whispering about whatever teenagers think grown-ups can never understand.
She used to help me make lasagna. She called me Ms. Diane even after I told her a hundred times to just call me Diane.
Then, in the spring, they broke up.
Caleb barely talked about it. He just got quiet for a few weeks. When I asked, he said, “It’s fine, Mom. It just didn’t work out.”
A few months later, Sadie was gone from our lives completely. She wasn’t at his graduation party. She wasn’t at the funeral.
I’d wondered about that. I’d been a little hurt by it, honestly. Then I’d stopped thinking about it, because I couldn’t think about anything.
Now she was standing in front of me.
Three years older than the last time I’d seen her. Thinner. Her dark hair pulled back loose. A dish towel over her shoulder.
The dog pushed past her legs and trotted inside like he owned the place.
Sadie looked down at him. Then back at me.
“What are you doing here?”
I swallowed.
“I followed your dog.”
Her expression changed. She glanced back over her shoulder, into the house. Then at me again.
“You followed Jasper?”
“Is that his name?”
She nodded slowly.
I almost laughed from pure confusion.
“Sadie, he’s been sitting at Caleb’s grave. Every Sunday. For months.”
All the color drained out of her face.
For a long moment, she didn’t say anything. She just held onto the edge of the door.
Then she opened it wider.
“You should come inside.”
Every instinct I had told me something was wrong. Something big.
I stepped up onto the porch anyway.
The front room was small but clean. A worn plaid couch against one wall. A TV on a stand. A plastic crate full of children’s picture books next to it.
I noticed the books right away.
Then I noticed the tiny blue sneakers lined up by the hallway. Light-up ones, with Velcro straps.
My chest tightened.
“Sadie. Do you have a child?”
She froze.
Jasper trotted down the hallway and disappeared around the corner.
And before she could answer me, a small voice called out from the back of the house.
“Mommy?”
Adrian Hawthorne is a celebrated author and dedicated archivist who finds inspiration in the hidden stories of the past. Educated at Oxford, he now works at the National Archives, where preserving history fuels his evocative writing. Balancing archival precision with creative storytelling, Adrian founded the Hawthorne Institute of Literary Arts to mentor emerging writers and honor the timeless art of narrative.