Something in his tone made the air in my kitchen feel thin. The words themselves were calm, but underneath them was a current of urgency that made my skin prickle.

I hung up the phone, feeling like someone had just thrown ice water down my spine. My hands were steady enough to place the phone on the counter, but my knees went weak, and I had to reach for the back of a chair.

I’d been a widow for fifteen years. I had survived hospital waiting rooms, a folded American flag handed to me at a graveside, and long nights wondering how on earth I would raise a grieving twelve-year-old boy into a whole man. I thought I knew what fear felt like.

But this was different. This was a creeping, gnawing dread that slithered up from somewhere behind my ribs and whispered that whatever I was about to learn would not just be painful. It would be corrective. It would rewrite the story of a day I’d been replaying like a warm memory every night before bed.