A Stranger Handed Me a Blue Box at Church and Said, “You’ll Need This Tonight”—I Wish I’d Opened It Sooner

Answer when it rings.”

I checked the kitchen clock. Six forty-seven in the evening. In just over five hours, that phone would ring, and whatever was happening—whatever impossible situation I’d stumbled into—would begin in earnest.

The wait was excruciating. I tried to eat but couldn’t. I tried to watch television but couldn’t focus.

Instead, I found myself pulling out the accident report I’d read a hundred times, studying every detail as if it might suddenly make sense. Single-vehicle accident. Brake failure.

Body recovered three days later, burned beyond recognition. Identified through dental records. Closed casket funeral.

I’d never actually seen my wife’s body, had trusted the authorities when they said it was too traumatic, that I should remember her as she’d been. At eleven-thirty, I made coffee with shaking hands. At eleven-fifty-five, every second felt like an hour.

I sat at the kitchen table with Blair’s phone in front of me, my old .38 revolver beside it—though what I expected to shoot, I couldn’t say. At exactly 11:59 p.m., the phone rang. The ringtone was “Born to Run”—Blair’s favorite Springsteen song.

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