I left without arguing, because there was nothing left to say.
I sat in my car, staring at the steering wheel, realizing that certainty can break without making a sound. Maybe the clerk was wrong.
Maybe grief had sharpened my fear into something exaggerated. Or maybe the truth wasn’t dramatic at all—just unresolved.
My wife had always believed that some doors don’t close when we think they do, that life leaves echoes behind when we aren’t paying attention.
That night, I didn’t chase answers. Instead, I opened old messages, reread notes she’d written on grocery lists, listened to voicemails I’d saved for no clear reason. The charge was still there, unchanged, but it no longer felt like an accusation. It felt like a question. That’s when I understood that closure isn’t a locked box you seal things into—it’s a decision you make every day.
Whether the clerk was right or wrong mattered less than this: love doesn’t disappear on a timetable.
Sometimes it lingers. Sometimes it startles you. And sometimes it reminds you that the story you thought was finished may simply be learning how to speak in another voice.
