Five years after losing my wife, Winter, grief was a companion I couldn’t shed—even though our daughter, Eliza, turned eighteen and life moved forward around us. Every year on this day, I visited her grave and left white roses, the same flowers I’d brought on our third date.
That afternoon, guilt crushing as ever, I followed my ritual. I took a deep breath, placed the roses on her grave, and whispered that I missed her. Back home, silence awaited me. I reached for coffee, only to stop dead: there, in the kitchen, stood that same bouquet—identical to the one on the grave—in a crystal vase on my table.
My heart pounded. I called for Eliza, but she was upstairs. I stared at the flowers—every petal, every dew drop matching what I’d just left behind. It was impossible.
My daughter descended, and I asked her softly where the flowers came from. Eliza’s eyes held a strange calm as she replied, “I didn’t bring them. I was with friends.”
Desperate, I returned to the cemetery—the roses were gone. I could feel my mind teetering on the edge. Back home, I noticed a folded note tucked beneath the vase. I grabbed it, trembling. The handwriting was unmistakable—it was Winter’s.
“I forgive you. But you need to face what you’ve left buried,” it read. My heart froze. That simple sentence cracked everything open.
Eliza snatched the note and met my eyes. “I knew,” she whispered. “Mom told me the truth before she died.” My knees buckled with shame. Eliza had known all along—and now demanded I face what I’d hidden.
