THEO
TWO YEARS EARLIER
It was eleven thirty when my phone rang from where I’d left it on the corner of my desk.
Alisha.
I smiled when I answered, sliding a merger agreement out of the way.
“Hey.”
“I’m tired,” she said. “Talk to me so I don’t fall asleep.”
She’d been visiting her parents. Driving home after a long weekend away. Charlotte was in the backseat, probably asleep by now.
“Put me on speaker,” I told her. “I’ll keep you entertained.”
We talked the way we always did when one of us was driving late. About nothing. About everything.
About the way Charlotte had started wobbling from the couch to the coffee table without holding on.
About how she’d laughed every time she dropped her sippy cup, like the concept of gravity was the funniest thing she’d ever seen.
About booking our trip to Bali now that Charlotte was finally done nursing—dreaming of a week where we might actually sleep through the night.
It was completely ordinary.
The kind of conversation you assumed you’d have a thousand more times.
But then—
A sound. A screech.
Metal folding in on itself.
Her breath catching sharp and wrong.
“Alisha?” I asked, my throat instantly tight.
And for two terrifying seconds, there was nothing.
Then her voice came through, strained and thin.
“Theo—”
My heart seized.
“Alisha, what happened?”
Because from the sounds I’d just heard, it felt like she’d collided with something that hadn’t given at all.
“Alisha!” I tried again when she didn’t respond. “Talk to me. Tell me what happened.”
Still no answer.
Just Charlotte sobbing in the background and something else—something wet and uneven—moving through the line in place of her breathing.
I grabbed my keys without even remembering standing up and ran for the elevator, my pulse pounding so loudly I could barely hear the phone pressed to my ear.
“Stay with me,” I said into the phone, my voice not sounding like mine. “Stay here. I’m calling 9-1-1. I’m coming.”
My hands were shaking so badly I nearly dropped the phone as I switched calls.
“My wife was in a car accident,” I told the dispatcher. “She’s on I-95—” I swallowed, staring at the map pinging on my screen. “She’s near mile marker forty-three.” Only a few minutes from me. “Please, just send someone.”
I answered what questions I could and hung up before she finished speaking.
I switched back.
“Alisha? Are you still there?”
“Yes.”
But it didn’t sound like her.
It sounded wrong.
Wet. Gurgling.
Like air was moving where it shouldn’t.
“I love you,” she whispered.
Like she already knew something I didn’t.
“No,” I choked. “No, don’t— Stay with me. Please stay here with me.”
I was in my car now. Speeding. Not caring about red lights. The engine roaring louder than it ever had before.
“Alisha, keep talking to me.”
“I love you,” she said again, like it took everything just to get the words out.
Then her breathing changed.
Slower.
“Alisha?”
Charlotte was still crying in the background.
“Alisha. Don’t close your eyes. Don’t you dare close your eyes.”
Nothing.
I didn’t remember parking.
I didn’t remember running.
I only saw the car folded around the tree.
And her inside it.
I pulled at the driver’s side door, but it wouldn’t budge. So I leaned in through the broken window.
“Alisha. Hey. Hey. Look at me.”
There was blood on her temple. A thin line at first. Then more, trailing down across her cheek and dripping onto her collarbone.
I pressed my fingers to her neck, but I couldn’t tell if I felt anything or if my own pulse was pounding too violently in my ears.
“Please don’t leave me,” I begged. “I can’t do this without you.”
Her head shifted slightly.
Or maybe it didn’t.
“Sir, step back.”
I hadn’t heard the EMTs arrive, but suddenly, there were hands on my shoulders and flashlights cutting through the dark.
Voices. Controlled. Urgent.
“I’m her husband,” I said, like that meant something. Like that gave me authority over what was happening.
“We’ve got her,” someone said.
They eased me back.
“No,” I said. “No, she’s still—she’s still breathing.”
Or maybe she wasn’t.
I couldn’t actually tell.
“Sir, we need space.”
As if this was something that could be managed. Organized. Reversed.
And then I heard Charlotte again.
My fourteen-month-old baby, strapped into her car seat.
Crying.
High, panicked sobs.
I tore free and yanked the back door open.
“Mammaaa!” she kept crying.
Over and over.
“Mamma. Mamma.”
Her cheeks were streaked with tears. Her little fists were clenched tight.
She was reaching forward.
Toward the front seat.
Toward a mother who wasn’t answering.
“Mamma up,” she whimpered.
I unbuckled her with shaking hands and pulled her into my chest.
Charlotte twisted, trying to look past me.
“Mamma.”
“I know,” I choked. “I know.”
But she didn’t know.
She didn’t understand why Mommy wasn’t turning around.
Why Mommy wasn’t saying her name.
Why Mommy wasn’t waking up.
She kept pointing.
Kept crying.
“Mammaaa.”
And I had to carry her away while she reached back for someone who wasn’t coming with us.
Someone she would never even remember.