All gone.
My legs—both the real one and the prosthetic—felt unsteady beneath me as I limped down the hallway toward our daughter’s room, my mind racing through possibilities, each one worse than the last.
Evie was asleep in her toddler bed, her mouth slightly open, one small hand resting on the head of her favorite stuffed duck—the one my Army buddy had sent from Oregon when she was born.
“What is going on, Jess?” I whispered, my voice cracking as I gently touched my daughter’s shoulder. “What did you do?”
My stomach twisted into knots.
That’s when I saw it.
Folded neatly on Evie’s dresser, right next to the framed photo of the three of us at Cedar Point last summer, was a piece of notebook paper covered in Jess’s distinctive handwriting—those careful, rounded letters she’d always been self-conscious about.
I picked it up with shaking hands.
“Callum,
I’m sorry. I can’t stay anymore.
Take care of our Evie. I made a promise to your mom, and I had to keep it. Ask her what I mean.
-J.”
I read it three times before the words actually penetrated my shock.
I can’t stay anymore.
