I felt like the ground had fallen out from under me. I read those lines over and over until the words blurred. I am still yours. I felt a chill run through me that had nothing to do with the spring air.

I wanted to scream, but the house was so quiet. It was the kind of quiet that feels heavy, like it’s pressing against your ears.

I remembered the night Walter died. It was a heart attack, quick and sudden. I had been sitting in the living room, and he had just walked into the kitchen to get a glass of water. A few minutes later, I heard a thud. I ran in there and he was already gone. I didn’t get to say goodbye. I didn’t get to tell him all the things I was holding inside.

I spent eight years thinking I was alone in that house. I spent eight years mourning a man I thought was six feet under. I stood up and walked into the kitchen. Everything looked the same. The same old linoleum, the same yellow curtains, the same smell of stale coffee. But now, it all felt like a trap.

I remembered the times I had felt like someone was watching me. I would be reading in the den and feel a prickle on the back of my neck. I would turn around, but there would be nobody there. I always laughed it off. I told myself I was just getting old and my imagination was playing tricks on me.

I picked up the phone to call the police, but I stopped. What was I going to say? That my dead husband was fixing my porch? They would come and take me away to a home.

They would take my house. They would tell me I was losing my mind, and honestly, maybe I was.

I looked at the notebook again. The ink was fresh. It hadn’t been sitting under that mat for years. It had been put there recently. I realized then that I wasn’t just dealing with a ghost or a memory. I was dealing with a person, someone who had been coming into my home every single night for eight years.

I didn’t sleep that night. I sat in the living room with the lights on, holding a kitchen knife that felt useless in my shaking hand. Every creak of the floorboards sounded like a footstep. Every shift of the wind sounded like a sigh. I realized I had been living in a dream, and I had just woken up into a nightmare.

I knew who it had to be, but I didn’t want to admit it. There was only one person who knew exactly how we had built that house. There was only one person who knew about the loose shingle and the cabinet hinge. It was someone who had loved me, and someone who had clearly lost his grip on reality long ago.